Women's Health Blog: Vitamin V – This One's for the Ladies

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Probiotics: Vitamins for the vagina

Like good fats and bad fats, not all bacteria are harmful. Beneficial bacteria live in/on us and do useful things like produce vitamins (biotin, vitamin K), suppress harmful organisms, and help to train and balance our immune systems.

As one indication of their value, consider that mothers pass beneficial bacteria to newborns through breast milk.

Probiotics, those little organisms found in yogurt and an increasing number of products, similarly, are meant to be a way of administering beneficial bacteria to positively affect health. And as research increasingly demonstrates just that for some strains of microorganisms, the success of mainstream probiotic products, like Dannon’s Activia, is further spreading the belief that good bacteria can bolster digestive health.

So what’s sex-specific about that?

Probiotics go beyond the digestive tract

It turns out that like the intestines, the vagina is another environmental battleground for good and bad bacteria. That’s right, good bacteria in the vagina. Like in the intestines, good bacteria confer a number of benefits. And when they are supplanted by other bacteria, undesirable things can occur.

For instance, many of the estimated 1 billion annual cases of urogenital infections worldwide, which include bacterial vaginosis, vulvovaginal candidiasis (i.e. “yeast infections”) and urinary tract infections, likely originate from bacteria out of balance. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that a vaginal environment gone awry with harmful bacteria can result in things – like increased inflammation – that may make a woman more susceptible to sexually transmitted infections and preterm labor.

What can be done?

Consider probiotics for prevention. Here are three reasons why:

1. Although often not showing symptoms, a majority of U.S. women have suboptimal vaginal health and almost 1/3 of all U.S. women test positive for bacterial vaginosis at any given time. As a result, many women may be at an increased risk for urinary tract infections, sexually transmitted infections and preterm labor without knowing it.¹ 
2. Even when showing symptoms, bacterial vaginosis can often be mistaken for a yeast infection. Because of this and the sensitive nature of these issues, many women attempt to self-medicate using over-the-counter yeast treatments. Often times the result is frustration and failure as anti-yeast treatments do nothing for an underlying bacterial problem. In fact, in one study 74 percent of women who believed they had a yeast infection, didn’t.² 
3. When bacterial vaginosis does arise AND it is correctly diagnosed, conventional treatment using antibiotics is only successful in 40 percent of cases.  In addition, your doctor may not be aware that this success rate was increased to greater than 80 percent when using two specific probiotic strains along with standard antibiotic therapy.³

Vitamin V

What does all this mean for women? These undesirable conditions are disconcerting and difficult to treat when they are recognized, or have hidden risks when they are not. But a measure of prevention is available using a probiotic capsule taken by mouth. Like multivitamins for general health, or vitamin C to boost immunity, probiotics for women can offer preventive assurance.  Think of it like a vitamin for your vagina.

Disclosure: Brad Douglass is a consultant for a company that sells a probiotic for women.

Brad Douglass can be reached at about.healththink@gmail.com.

You can read more of Brad Douglas' health blogs here.

You can other WellWise.org bloggers here

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About HealthThink

In HealthThink on WellWise.org, I ruminate on all thoughts health especially as they intersect with dietary supplements.  How do we really think about health [when we’re healthy]?  And what does our behavior belie about how we think about health?  Aside from the general rule that applies to the entire blogosphere – never believe what you read in a blog – here are two tenets for this blog: 1) spending your good time reading entitles you to comment/complain about HealthThink and 2) if you complain/comment do not be surprised to see your ideas or words appear in said blog.  If you complain/comment using words in the spirit of this wordsmithing hit, you’ll get extra credit.  A blog with rules and extra credit: fantastic.