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Health24.com | The 15 best vitamins and nutrients for women
How often did your mom tell you to “Take your vitamins!” when you were a kid while shoving a bottle of Flintstones’ gummies in your face?
Of course, by now you know by now that your body needs vitamins and minerals to stay healthy and strong.
You probably also know that most experts agree that whole foods (not gummy vitamins) are the best source of essential nutrients: “We get a wide variety of nutrients from eating fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats,” says Keri Glassman, registered dietician and Women’s Health nutrition expert.
That being said, it’s difficult to know with 100 percent certainty if you’re eating precisely enough nutrients to fend off symptoms of deficiency or illness.
Plus, things get even more confusing when you, say, decide to go vegetarian or get pregnant.
These are the best vitamins for women, according to nutritionists (but if you’re super-concerned about a deficiency, chat with your dietitian or doctor about whether you should make a lifestyle change or consider a supplement):
Iron
What it does: Iron carries oxygen in the body; aids in the production of red blood cells; supports immune function, cognitive development, and temperature regulation; is essential for proper cell growth.
Why you need it: Slacking on your iron intake causes your body to reduce the production of red blood cells, causing anaemia. This can lead to fatigue, shortness of breath, as well as decreased immune function. What’s more, blood loss during your period depletes your body’s iron stores, so it’s particularly important for women with heavy periods to eat iron-rich foods or take supplements, says Carol Haggans, a registered dietician and consultant for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Be sure to get 18 mg of iron daily, recommends NIH.
Where to find it: Dark-green leafy vegetables, lean red meat, chicken, turkey, fish, cereals, beans, and whole grains. Eat these foods with a vitamin C food, to help your body absorb the iron, says Haggans.
READ MORE: 8 Signs You Need To Be Getting More Vitamin D Into Your Daily Diet
Calcium
What it does: Calcium makes and keeps your bones and teeth strong, and helps muscles function.
Why you need it: Calcium is one of the best vitamins for women, because your body needs it for optimal bone health. “Women start losing bone density in their twenties,” says Dr Mary Ellen Camire, a nutrition professor at the University of Maine at Orono. “Calcium is your single best defence, and you should start getting plenty of it now.” The NIH recommends eating 1,000 mg a day.
Where to find it: Dairy products such as milk, cheese, and yoghurt. Plus, dark-green leafy vegetables such as broccoli and kale.
Magnesium
What it does: Magnesium maintains normal muscle and nerve function, keeps your heart rhythm steady, supports a healthy immune system, keeps bones strong, helps regulate blood sugar levels, and promotes normal blood pressure.
Why you need it: Magnesium is necessary for more than 300 biochemical reactions in the body. And a deficiency could lead to chronic or excessive vomiting, diarrhoea, and migraines. If you suffer from Crohn’s disease or another gastrointestinal disorder that makes it difficult for your body to absorb nutrients, you may be at risk for magnesium deficiency. Opt for 310 to 320 mg a day, according to NIH.
Where to find it: Green vegetables like okra, some beans, nuts, seeds, and unrefined whole grains.
Vitamin A
What it does: Vitamin A ensures proper development and function of your eyes, skin, immune system, and many other parts of your body.
Why you need it: Vitamin A makes the list of best vitamins for women, since it plays a vital role in vision support. Research also suggests that vitamin A may prevent some types of cancer, and improve immune function, says Glassman. The NIH recommends getting 700 mcg RAE of vitamin A daily (you’d get that in about half a sweet potato or a little more than half a cup of spinach.)
Where to find it: Leafy green vegetables, orange and yellow vegetables (especially sweet potatoes and carrots), tomatoes, fruits, dairy products, liver, fish, and fortified cereals. Vitamin A is also available in multivitamins and stand-alone supplements.
Folate
What it does: Folate produces and maintains new cells, including red blood cells, and it’s necessary for proper brain function.
Why you need it: Folate, which is a B vitamin, is crucial for preventing anaemia, since it produces new blood cells in your body. Not getting ample folate can also lead to serious problems, like an increased risk of cervical, colon, brain, and lung cancer. And folate is especially important during pregnancy – in fact, 50 to 75 percent of serious birth defects may be prevented by getting enough folic acid just before and throughout the first month of pregnancy, according to the CDC.
The daily recommended amount is 400 micrograms, but this need increases to 600 micrograms for pregnant women and 500 micrograms for those lactating.
Where to find it: Leafy green vegetables, avocados, beans, eggs, and peanuts. The synthetic form of folate (folic acid) is found in supplements and often added to enriched cereals, breads, pastas, and rice.
Biotin
What it does: Biotin aids in the formation of fatty acids and blood sugar, which are used for energy production in the body. Plus, it helps metabolise amino acids and carbohydrates.
Why you need it: While a lack of biotin is rare, getting sufficient amounts staves off signs of deficiency including hair loss, brittle nails, and a scaly, red facial rash. The NIH recommends that women 19 and older get 30 mcg of biotin daily.
Biotin supplements are also sometimes prescribed by doctors for other reasons too, like easing multiple sclerosis symptoms, reducing diabetes-related nerve damage, or aiding growth and development during pregnancy, according to the National Library of Medicine.
Where to find it: Cauliflower, liver, sweet potato, almonds, avocado, seeds, eggs, milk, grains, raspberries.
READ MORE: 7 Supplements You Might Want To Take If You’re A Vegan
B Vitamins
What it does: Vitamins like B6 and B12 help the body to convert food into fuel for energy. They also contribute to healthy skin, hair, and eyes. Plus, they maintain proper nervous system functioning, metabolism, muscle tone, and a sharp mind.
Why you need it: Deficiency of certain B vitamins, can cause a host of awful symptoms. According to Glassman, it can cause anaemia, tiredness, loss of appetite, abdominal pain, depression, numbness and tingling in the arms and legs, muscle cramps, respiratory infections, hair loss, eczema, poor development in children, and birth defects. You should get 2.4 mcg of B12 and 1.6 mcg of B6, according to NIH.
Where to find it: Fish, poultry, meat, eggs, dairy products, leafy green vegetables, legumes, many cereals, and some breads.
Vitamin C
What it does: Facilitates normal growth and development and repairs bodily tissues, bones, and teeth. It functions as an antioxidant to block some of the damage caused by free radicals.
Why you need it: Vitamin C’s healing and antioxidant powers make it essential. Signs of vitamin deficiency include dry and splitting hair; gingivitis (inflammation of the gums) and bleeding gums; rough, dry, scaly skin; decreased wound-healing rate; easy bruising; nosebleeds; and a decreased ability to fight infection. Women over 19 need 75 mg vitamin C daily, according to NIH.
Despite its rep as a cold fighter, C has never been proven to prevent or cure the sniffles, but the antioxidant is believed to boost your immune system. Palinski-Wade says this is attributed to vitamin C’s ability to reduce stress, which in turn, boosts the immune system.
It is also often used as an ingredient in skincare products since vitamin C can help your body produce collagen – an important protein used to make skin, cartilage, tendons, ligaments, and blood vessels.
Where to find it: All fruits and vegetables, particularly citrus fruits, red pepper, and broccoli.
Vitamin D
What it does: Promotes bone growth, cell growth, neuromuscular and immune function. It also helps reduce inflammation.
Why you need it: Without sufficient vitamin D, bones can become thin, brittle, or misshapen, leading to osteomalacia, or a softening of the bones, which can weaken muscles, too. Vitamin D deficiency has also been shown to play a role in the development of type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
The good news: Evidence suggests that vitamin D may provide some protection against colorectal and possibly other cancers, according to Glassman. You should be getting 15 mcg vitamin D on a daily basis, recommends NIH.
Where to find it: Flesh of fatty fish, such as salmon and tuna, and fish liver oils, with small amounts in beef liver, cheese, and egg yolks. Many people also meet at least some of their vitamin D needs through exposure to sunlight – so if you live somewhere where sunny days are rare, you may want to consider eating extra vitamin D-rich foods, or try a supplement.
Omega-3
What it does: Omega-3 assists in proper brain operation (like brain memory and performance) and behavioural function, helps reduce high blood pressure and calms inflammation.
Why you need it: Research shows that since omega-3 fatty acids reduce inflammation, they may help lower risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and other joint problems. What’s more, studies have found that those who ate more fish high in omega-3 fatty acids were less likely to have macular degeneration (a condition that steals your central vision) than those who ate less fish, according to Glassman. Aim for 1.1g of omega-3s daily, advises NIH.
Where to find it: Fish – particularly fatty fish like salmon, tuna, sardines, and mackerel – and plants and nut oils. (Fish oil capsules are also a great option if you’re not a fan of eating seafood, but take less than three grams a day since fish oil can thin your blood, says Glassman.)
READ MORE: ?5 Signs You Might Have A Scary Vitamin B12 Deficiency
Probiotics
What it does: Aids in digestion, helps promote gut health, fights off disease-causing bacteria, can reduce diarrhoea caused by certain infections and irritable bowel syndrome.
Why you need it: Since the mid-1990s, clinical studies have established that probiotic therapy can help treat a number of ills, including diarrhoea, vaginal yeast and urinary tract infections, irritable bowel syndrome, and certain intestinal infections, says Glassman. There’s no recommended dose of probiotics, but adding probiotic-filled foods into your diet may help reap these natural benefits.
Where to find it: Yogurt is the most classic example. But there are plenty of other probiotic foods like kombucha, kefir, miso, sauerkraut, pickles, and fermented cheese.
Fibre
What it does: Promotes healthy bowels, lowers the risk of heart disease by reducing LDL cholesterol levels, helps you feel full, and promotes weight loss.
Why you need it: According to Palinski-Wade, fibre is incredibly beneficial for a variety of health reasons, and most women fall short on consuming enough of the vitamin. Chief among them is that adequate fibre intake (25 grams a day for women) can control blood sugar levels by slowing down the rate of sugar absorption. This process can help ward off type 2 diabetes. You should eat around 30 g of fibre per day—but if your intake is significantly less than that now, increase your daily intake by 5 g until you get there.
Where to find it: Plant-based foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, grains and legumes contain hearty doses of fibre. Keep in mind that fibre-enriched supplements, which contain bowel-stimulating ingredients like wheat dextrin and psyllium husk respectively, do not contain other essential nutrients, so it’s best to consume whole foods.
Prebiotics
What it does: Reduces allergy risk, and thus inflammation, improves the immune system and increases calcium absorption.
Why you need it: Unlike probiotics, which add good bacteria to your gut, prebiotics nourish and fuel the existing bacteria in your digestive tract. Research from the journal Nutrients found that the risk of colorectal cancer is lower in those who consume more inulin and oligofructose, two powerful prebiotics. They also experienced fewer upper respiratory infections, atopic dermatitis (known as eczema) and cases of wheezing. Similar to probiotics, there’s no specific recommended daily intake of prebiotics.
Where to find it: There are a number of prebiotic foods, like walnuts, dark chocolate, lentils, leeks, and apples. Also, beta-glucans found in many grains like oats and barley.
Melatonin
What it does: Helps regulate other hormones; maintains the body’s circadian rhythm, an internal 24-hour clock that plays a critical role in when we fall asleep and wake up; helps control the timing and release of female reproductive hormones (determining when a woman starts to menstruate, the frequency and duration of menstrual cycles, and when a woman stops menstruating, i.e. starts menopause).
Why you need it: Melatonin is considered one of the best vitamins for women as it plays a large role in regulating your sleep schedule. When it gets dark at night, a nerve pathway in your eye sends a signal to the brain to tell the pineal gland to start secreting melatonin, which makes you sleepy. Low levels of melatonin—along with screwing up up Zzzs – can also increase your risk for breast cancer, explains Palinski-Wade.
Where to find it: Tablets, capsules, creams, and lozenges. (There is currently no recommended dose for melatonin supplements but the best approach is, to begin with a very low dose – about 200 mcg). Even better, though, is to eat nutrients like magnesium (spinach), tryptophan (eggs), which increase the body’s own production of melatonin, says Palinski-Wade. Relying on supplemental melatonin can impact the body from producing it naturally.
READ MORE: 7 Fat-Melting Supplements You Need To Include In Your Diet
Zinc
What it does: Defends against toxins and foreign substances, and develops T-cells, which help fight off viruses. Zinc helps with blood clotting, taste perception, and keeps your blood sugar stable.
Why you need it: Because zinc is essential for developing T-cells, it plays a major role in keeping your immune system running smoothly—including fighting off virus-infected and cancerous cells. Since it interacts with blood platelets to help with blood clotting, zinc is crucial for helping cuts and scrapes heal properly. It also plays a role in maintaining healthy digestion and metabolism.
That said, zinc is a trace mineral, meaning you only need a small amount to avoid zinc deficiency. “Women 19 years and older need eight milligrams of zinc daily, a pregnant woman needs 11 milligrams, and a breastfeeding woman needs 12 milligrams,” says Amy Gorin, a registered dietician.
Where to find it: Zinc-rich foods include legumes, oysters, nuts, and seeds. Just keep in mind, “since you need so little zinc, it’s easy to overdose and see negative effects,” says Bontempo. So talk to your doctor before trying a supplement.
This article was originally published on www.womenshealthsa.co.za
Image credit: iStock
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Why researchers are mapping the world’s manure
Farmers rely on phosphorus fertilizers to enrich the soil and ensure bountiful harvests, but the world’s recoverable reserves of phosphate rocks, from which such fertilizers are produced, are finite and unevenly distributed. Stevens Institute of Technology is spearheading an international effort to map the global flow of phosphorus, much of which will be absorbed by crops, then eaten and excreted as waste by animals and people — and jump-start efforts to recapture and recycle the vital nutrient.
In the April 2019 issue of Earth’s Future, David Vaccari, director of the Stevens Institute’s department of civil, environmental and ocean engineering, and his team map that process globally for the first time, and identify regional “hot spots” where there’s both significant demand for fertilizers, and significant potential for recapturing phosphorus from animal and human waste.
“Ideally, the 45 million metric tons of phosphorus fertilizers each year would be completely reused, and we’d harvest their maximum potential to support food production,” said Vaccari. “This work is a step towards understanding how to get to that point.”
Vaccari’s team, including researchers from China, Australia, Canada, Sweden, and Netherlands, combined recently developed datasets to map global crop production alongside human and livestock population levels. They then divided the planet into a grid of 10-kilometer wide blocks, allowing detailed local insights with an unprecedented overview of global phosphorus flows that bridges the global to the local, actionable level. “In a field where a lack of well-integrated data has often impeded both local and regional planning, this global map is a key breakthrough,” said Vaccari.
The team show there are significant untapped opportunities for recycling phosphorus. Some 72 percent of croplands with significant manure production nearby, and 68 percent of croplands with significant human populations nearby, are in regions that are heavily dependent on imported phosphorus, including large swathes of major emerging economies such as India and Brazil. The study also identifies significant surpluses of phosphorus-rich waste in much of Asia, Europe, and the United States, suggesting that both developing and developed economies could benefit from increased recycling.
“If we want to get serious about phosphorus recycling, these are the places where we’re going to get the most bang for our buck,” said Vaccari.
The results also show that at least five times as much phosphorus is contained in animal manure as human waste, suggesting that livestock operations are an abundant target for recycling efforts. Almost half of the world’s farmlands — about 12 percent of the planet’s landmass — are co-located with manure-rich livestock operations, suggesting that in many regions manure could be applied to fields directly, or processed using bio-digesters to extract phosphorus for efficient and economical transport to farms.
First-author Steve Powers, a researcher at Washington State University who conceived of the study, is now trying to figure out exactly how much phosphorus can be recaptured from animal and human waste, and identify other opportunities for more efficient phosphorus use. “If we can recycle more of this locally-available waste phosphorus back into agriculture, we might be able to keep it away from leak points while reducing our dependence on future fertilizer imports and mining,” said Powers.
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Materials provided by Stevens Institute of Technology. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Giving robots a better feel for object manipulation
A new learning system developed by MIT researchers improves robots’ abilities to mold materials into target shapes and make predictions about interacting with solid objects and liquids. The system, known as a learning-based particle simulator, could give industrial robots a more refined touch — and it may have fun applications in personal robotics, such as modelling clay shapes or rolling sticky rice for sushi.
In robotic planning, physical simulators are models that capture how different materials respond to force. Robots are “trained” using the models, to predict the outcomes of their interactions with objects, such as pushing a solid box or poking deformable clay. But traditional learning-based simulators mainly focus on rigid objects and are unable to handle fluids or softer objects. Some more accurate physics-based simulators can handle diverse materials, but rely heavily on approximation techniques that introduce errors when robots interact with objects in the real world.
In a paper being presented at the International Conference on Learning Representations in May, the researchers describe a new model that learns to capture how small portions of different materials — “particles” — interact when they’re poked and prodded. The model directly learns from data in cases where the underlying physics of the movements are uncertain or unknown. Robots can then use the model as a guide to predict how liquids, as well as rigid and deformable materials, will react to the force of its touch. As the robot handles the objects, the model also helps to further refine the robot’s control.
In experiments, a robotic hand with two fingers, called “RiceGrip,” accurately shaped a deformable foam to a desired configuration — such as a “T” shape — that serves as a proxy for sushi rice. In short, the researchers’ model serves as a type of “intuitive physics” brain that robots can leverage to reconstruct three-dimensional objects somewhat similarly to how humans do.
“Humans have an intuitive physics model in our heads, where we can imagine how an object will behave if we push or squeeze it. Based on this intuitive model, humans can accomplish amazing manipulation tasks that are far beyond the reach of current robots,” says first author Yunzhu Li, a graduate student in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). “We want to build this type of intuitive model for robots to enable them to do what humans can do.”
“When children are 5 months old, they already have different expectations for solids and liquids,” adds co-author Jiajun Wu, a CSAIL graduate student. “That’s something we know at an early age, so maybe that’s something we should try to model for robots.”
Joining Li and Wu on the paper are: Russ Tedrake, a CSAIL researcher and a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS); Joshua Tenenbaum, a professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences; and Antonio Torralba, a professor in EECS and director of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab.
Dynamic graphs
A key innovation behind the model, called the “particle interaction network” (DPI-Nets), was creating dynamic interaction graphs, which consist of thousands of nodes and edges that can capture complex behaviors of so-called particles. In the graphs, each node represents a particle. Neighboring nodes are connected with each other using directed edges, which represent the interaction passing from one particle to the other. In the simulator, particles are hundreds of small spheres combined to make up some liquid or a deformable object.
The graphs are constructed as the basis for a machine-learning system called a graph neural network. In training, the model over time learns how particles in different materials react and reshape. It does so by implicitly calculating various properties for each particle — such as its mass and elasticity — to predict if and where the particle will move in the graph when perturbed.
The model then leverages a “propagation” technique, which instantaneously spreads a signal throughout the graph. The researchers customized the technique for each type of material — rigid, deformable, and liquid — to shoot a signal that predicts particles positions at certain incremental time steps. At each step, it moves and reconnects particles, if needed.
For example, if a solid box is pushed, perturbed particles will be moved forward. Because all particles inside the box are rigidly connected with each other, every other particle in the object moves the same calculated distance, rotation, and any other dimension. Particle connections remain intact and the box moves as a single unit. But if an area of deformable foam is indented, the effect will be different. Perturbed particles move forward a lot, surrounding particles move forward only slightly, and particles farther away won’t move at all. With liquids being sloshed around in a cup, particles may completely jump from one end of the graph to the other. The graph must learn to predict where and how much all affected particles move, which is computationally complex.
Shaping and adapting
In their paper, the researchers demonstrate the model by tasking the two-fingered RiceGrip robot with clamping target shapes out of deformable foam. The robot first uses a depth-sensing camera and object-recognition techniques to identify the foam. The researchers randomly select particles inside the perceived shape to initialize the position of the particles. Then, the model adds edges between particles and reconstructs the foam into a dynamic graph customized for deformable materials.
Because of the learned simulations, the robot already has a good idea of how each touch, given a certain amount of force, will affect each of the particles in the graph. As the robot starts indenting the foam, it iteratively matches the real-world position of the particles to the targeted position of the particles. Whenever the particles don’t align, it sends an error signal to the model. That signal tweaks the model to better match the real-world physics of the material.
Next, the researchers aim to improve the model to help robots better predict interactions with partially observable scenarios, such as knowing how a pile of boxes will move when pushed, even if only the boxes at the surface are visible and most of the other boxes are hidden.
The researchers are also exploring ways to combine the model with an end-to-end perception module by operating directly on images. This will be a joint project with Dan Yamins’s group; Yamin recently completed his postdoc at MIT and is now an assistant professor at Stanford University. “You’re dealing with these cases all the time where there’s only partial information,” Wu says. “We’re extending our model to learn the dynamics of all particles, while only seeing a small portion.”
VIDEO: http://youtu.be/FrPpP7aW3Lg
PAPER: “Learning Particle Dynamics for Manipulating Rigid Bodies, Deformable Objects, and Fluids”
Bacterial therapy in a dish
Engineering bacteria to intelligently sense and respond to disease states, from infections to cancer, has become a promising focus of synthetic biology. Rapid advances in genetic engineering tools have enabled researchers to “program” cells to perform various sophisticated tasks. For example, a network of genes can be wired together to form a genetic circuit in which cells can be engineered to sense the environment and modulate their behavior or produce molecules in response.
Recent research has found that many bacteria selectively colonize tumors in vivo, prompting scientists to engineer them as programmable vehicles, biological “robots” in other words, to deliver anticancer therapeutics. Researchers are also developing new, “smart” medicines by programming bacteria to tackle other diseases, such as gastrointestinal disease and infections. Key to advancing such “living medicines” is being able to identify the best therapeutic candidates.
However, while current synthetic biology tools can create an enormous number of programmed cells, researchers’ dependence on animal-based testing has greatly limited the number of therapies that can be tested and how quickly. In fact, the ability to rapidly engineer new therapies for humans far outpaces the throughput of animal-based testing, creating a major bottleneck for clinical translation.
Researchers at Columbia Engineering report today in PNAS that they have developed a system that enables them to study tens to hundreds of programmed bacteria within mini-tissues in a dish, condensing the time of study from months to days. As a proof of concept, they focused on testing programmed antitumor bacteria using mini-tumors called tumor spheroids. The speed and high throughput of their technology, which they call BSCC for “bacteria spheroids co-culture,” allows for stable growth of bacteria within tumor spheroids enabling long-term study. The method can also be used for other bacteria species and cell types. The team, led by Tal Danino, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, says that, to their knowledge, this study is the first to rapidly screen and characterize bacteria therapies in vitro and will be a useful tool for many researchers in the field.
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/fBMiMXqcvaU
“We’re very excited at how efficient BSCC is and think it will really accelerate engineered bacterial therapy for clinical use,” Danino says. “By combining automation and robotics technology, BSCC can test a large library of therapies to discover effective treatments. And because BSCC is so broadly applicable, we can modify the system to test human samples as well as other diseases. For example, it will help us personalize medical treatments by creating a patient’s cancer in a dish, and rapidly identify the best therapy for the specific individual.”
The researchers knew that while many bacteria can grow inside a tumor because of the reduced immune system there, bacteria are killed outside the tumor where the body’s immune system is active. Inspired by this mechanism, they searched for an antibacterial agent that can mimic the bacteria “killing” effect outside the spheroids.
They developed a protocol to use the antibiotic gentamicin to grow bacteria inside spheroids that are similar to tumors in the body. Using BSCC, they then rapidly tested a broad range of programmed anticancer bacterial therapies made of various types of bacteria, genetic circuits, and therapeutic payloads.
“We used 3D multicellular spheroids because they recapitulate conditions found in the human body, such as oxygen and nutrient gradients — these can’t be made in a traditional 2D monolayer cell culture,” says the paper’s lead author Tetsuhiro Harimoto, who is a PhD student in Danino’s lab. “In addition, the 3D spheroid provides bacteria with enough space to live in its core, in much the same way that bacteria colonize tumors in the body, also something we can’t do in the 2D monolayer culture. Plus, it’s simple to make large numbers of 3D spheroids and adapt them for high-throughput screening.”
The team used the BSCC’s high-throughput system to rapidly characterize pools of programmed bacteria and then to quickly narrow down the best candidate for therapeutic use. They discovered a potent therapy for colon cancer, using a novel bacterial toxin, theta toxin, combined with an optimal drug delivery genetic circuit in attenuated bacteria Salmonella Typhimurium. They also found new combinations of bacterial therapies that can improve anticancer efficacy even more.
The researchers compared their BSCC results to those found in animal models, and found similar behavior of bacteria in those models. They also discovered that their top candidate, theta toxin, is more potent than therapies created in the past, demonstrating the power of BSCC’s high-throughput screening.
While Danino’s group focused on cancer therapy in this study, they hope to expand BSCC to characterize bacteria-based therapeutics for various diseases, including gastrointestinal disease and infections. Their ultimate goal is to use these new bacterial therapies in clinics around the world.
Health24.com | 5 Things you probably didn’t know about birth control pills
Whether you’ve taken birth control pills for years or are thinking about starting, you probably know that oral contraceptives help keep you from getting pregnant.
What you may not know is how, exactly. In a nutshell, combination pills use the hormones progestin and estrogen to stop your ovaries from releasing an egg each month. Progestin-only pills, on the other hand, thicken your cervical mucus, making it harder for sperm to get into your uterus. Interesting, right?
If you’re shaking your head yes, you’re in luck! There are a ton of other seriously interesting facts you probably didn’t know about the contraceptive—from unexpected benefits to the weird things that might make it less effective.
Here are six surprising nuggets of info that are definitely worth getting on your radar.
1. They can make your periods more comfortable
The hormones in oral contraceptives work to prevent pregnancy. (Duh.) But they have the added perk of moderating miserable period symptoms, says Dr Kecia Gaither, the director of perinatal services at NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln.
In addition to easing heavy bleeding, the pill can help keep period cramps at bay, fight acne, and even work to stave off menstrual migraines. (#winning)
READ MORE: Should You Actually Double Up If You Missed A Birth Control Pill?
2. Some meds might make your pills less effective
Experts know that antibiotics like griseofulvin (an antifungal used to treat things like ringworm and athlete’s foot) and rifampicin (an antibiotic used to treat various infections) can keep BC pills from working properly, and evidence suggests other types of antibiotics might do the same.
Why? “Antibiotics can increase the activity of liver enzymes that metabolize certain pills, including birth control pills,” explains Dr Daniel Kort, Associate Medical Director of Neway Fertility in Manhattan. The pills can get broken down faster than normal. As a result, it could cause a lapse in protection.
That said if you have to take antibiotics while on the pill, play it safe by using condoms or another form of backup contraception.
3. They can lower your risk for some diseases
Oral contraceptives seem to play a role in helping to prevent some cancers. Women who’ve taken the pill are up to 50 percent less likely to get ovarian cancer; at least 30 percent less likely to get endometrial cancer; and up to 20 percent less likely to get colorectal cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.
And that’s not all. Taking the pill seems to lower the risk for rheumatoid arthritis by as much as 19 percent, a recent Swedish study found. And because the pill reduces blood loss caused by heavy periods, it can help prevent iron deficiency anaemia, too.
READ MORE: 9 Side Effects Of Hormonal Birth Control Every Woman Should Know
4. You don’t have to take a break from them
Ever hear that thing about long-term pill use being bad for you? Some natural health influencers warn that taking oral contraceptives for years on end could wreak havoc on your fertility. Except… it’s not true.
“One doesn’t need to take a break from oral contraceptive use unless one wants to,” Dr Gaither says. If and when you decide you’re ready to try getting pregnant, talk with your doctor about when you should stop taking your pills.
5. You can take them strategically to skip your period altogether
Yup, you read that right. Most monthly pill packs contain 21 active pills with hormones and seven placebo ones. Users get their period during the week of placebo pills – but if you skip those pills and move right onto the next pack, you’ll skip your period.
Findings show this is totally safe, btw, and it can deliver a dose of relief for women with endometriosis or painful periods. The only downside is that you might be more prone to spotting in between periods, Dr Gaither says.
This article was originally published on www.womenshealthsa.co.za
Image credit: iStock
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