Research at Boston University indicate that black women who tend to eat foods with a high sugar content may have a greater risk for uterine fibroids.
Uterine fibroids are non cancerous growths that causes heavy menstrual bleeding and cramping during child birth age and studies show that it is 2 to 3 times more likely to occur in black women.
The study which tested nearly 21,900 premenopausal black women found that those who eat foods with a high glycemic index such as sugary drinks, pastries, white bread and white rice, were more at risk from fibroids.
This is because these types of foods releases sugar into the blood very quickly causing the body to release hormones to deal with the blood sugar spikes.
Scientists believe that high sugar levels in the blood or a high carbohydrate diet can lead to high insulin levels which are linked to other hormones that are thought to lead to fibroid growth.
Foods with a high glycemic index are also risk factors for heart disease and diabetes.
Changing your diet and improving your health
Changing your diet need does not need that you have to go cold turkey on the foods that you like but it does mean that you have to reduce the levels of high glycemic index foods that you consume daily.
Breakfast cereals should be based on oats, barley and bran. Breads should be whole-grain. Reduce the amount of potatoes you eat. Enjoy plenty of fruits and vegetables with a low low glycemic index. Use Basmati or Doongara rice. Enjoy pasta, noodles and quinoa and eat plenty of salad vegetables with a vinaigrette dressing.
To learn more about how to reduce eating foods with a high glycemic index go the websites below.
For further research:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62F55R20100316?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=faq&dbid=32#eating
Excellent ! These findings are also supported in work being conducted elsewhere. Need more info of this type. Most importantly, need our youth to be educated in these matters from as early an age as is reasonable. Anecdotally, Black girls enter puberty sooner than their caucasion counterparts – so need this info earlier.
Also need to encourage parents to introduce as healthy a diet from earliest age possible. During weaning. We love our dumpling, fritters, bun and hardoe, bread/batter coated fried chicken, white rice and peas and similar. We have to see what we can do to lessen the kinds of risks noted above from using refined sugar, white flour etc.
No point in saying, “people back home never suffer from these type of problems”. We’re over here now. In any case, looking back on the whispered conversations I over heard as a child – women clearly did have these problems back home. Just not openly discussed. And some died from them. Blood loss, internal organ adhesions etc associated with fibriods is not funny.
Also we (many of us at least) are not back-a-yard now. We live in a country where we don’t even have time to wipe our mouths after eating because we have to run back to work; our salaries will only stretch to shopping at Aldi or Lidl – God alone knows what chemicals our food is swimming in before it gets to us. Add to this the stress of living and working here ! All said, we need to understand and educate our loved ones to eat well and cook well in order to avoid adding to the cocktail of chemicals we are exposed to day after day.
Having noted the above there are quite a few pioneers out there in the UK medical professions, women in the community (promoting self help) and others who are batting in our corner and saving the wombs of our women and future generations of our kids (N.B. no wombs, no kids, no future. Let’s big it up for the many women who have acted as community educators and comforters for women who have had to do battle with the medical professions who often goad us into having ‘it all whipped out’ to save NHS the hassle of treating us. Maybe we need to be saying who these folk are. Some self-help groups have had to close due to lack of support or funding. There’s only so much you can do from your front or with the little sick pay that government may give you whilst you are fighting these battles and helping other women and their families.
And that’s another point: we have to understand that when it comes to “women’s issues”, it’s never just a “women’s issue” for Black women. Many of us also tend to be the sole parent an/or sole income generator in our families. So when our health suffers our families collapse.
Great article, great work. Keep it up.
Individuals on a low glycemic index foods or diets have less dramatic variations in blood sugar levels and relatively less hormone levels which results to fewer food cravings. This means that these individuals are able to maintain their diet without having to snack in between meals and one of the major results is weight loss.