A new study published this week suggests that women with high levels of both oestrogen and testosterone at midlife are at a higher risk of developing fibroids than women with low levels of hormones. This finding is important because this is the first time that testosterone has been linked to fibroids.

In this study 1412 women aged 45 -52 were monitored over 13 years with each woman having an annual check-up where their hormone levels were measured. It was found that women with high levels of testosterone in their blood were 1.33 times more likely to develop fibroids than women with low levels of testosterone, and women with high levels of both oestrogen and testosterone had an even greater risk , they were 1.5 times more likely to develop fibroids.

Dr Jennifer Lee, one of the researchers explained the importance of these findings by stating that:

“The research opens up new lines of inquiry regarding how fibroids develop and how they are treated. Given that managing uterine fibroids costs an estimated $34.4 billion in annual medical expenditures nationwide, it is important to identify new ways to better treat this common condition.”

You can read more about this research here

As the year draws to an end it’s the perfect opportunity to reflect on the work that we’re doing. As a result of all your support and encouragement we have been very productive and have made significant progress in working towards our mission of improving the health and well-being of the black community.

We are delighted to share our achievements for 2015 with you. Over the past year we have:

1. Continued to run our African Caribbean Cancer Support Group which meets monthly  and were delighted to have been awarded a grant by Macmillan to help us increase its membership.

2. Published our new fibroids booklet which aims to be a one-stop-shop for anyone with questions or concerns about fibroids

3. Continued to offer support to women through our Fibroids Ask the Expert which provides women with questions or concerns about fibroids with access to experts in the field that can provide them with accurate reliable information

4. We welcomed a new member to our Fibroids Ask the Expert, Dr Nigel Hacking

5. We continued with our summer cycling sessions  as part of our ‘Keep Active’ work. These sessions had double the number of people attending compared to the previous year.

6. Delivered a range of health awareness presentations to the  community

7.  Recruited new trustees

8. Our founder was presented with an award for her contribution to improving the health and wellbeing of the black community

9. Published the results from Prostate Cancer Engagement and Empowerment pilotthat we conducted with funding from Prostate Cancer UK

10. We were featured on radio and in AfroRetro magazine

11. We were offered a grant from Sport England to run a cycling club for a year and hope to begin this project in January 2016

12. We teamed up with Black History Walks, Amanda Epe and Dr Sydney Dillard to run a fibroids awareness event with over 200 women attending.

13. We became a member of the Croydon BME Forum

14. We piloted ‘AfroFit’ as part of our ‘Keep Active’ work

This week the UK’s Chief Medical Officer Prof Dame Sally Davies published her annual health report which focused on women’s health. We were very happy that the report had this focus as many of the health issues that affect women can often be ignored,  not talked about or are felt to be too trivial to be of any importance to society. The report communicates this sentiment by stating that:

“Problems ‘below the waist’ are not generally seen as attractive topics for public or political discourse. Women are often reluctant to seek help for conditions that are common, disabling and taboo…”

The report covers a number of women’s health issues including gender-based violence, FGM, eating disorders, pre-conception health, prenatal screening, perinatal mental health, post-pregnancy care, menopause, incontinence, prolapse and women’s cancers. They make 18 recommendations on how to address the challenges associated with these issues and you can read about these here

We were disappointed to see that fibroids weren’t mentioned in this report despite fibroids being very common and having a significant effect on quality of life. It would have been very relevant for fibroids to be have been explored in a report on women’s health and we feel that this was a missed opportunity to explore the impact of fibroids and begin to develop a national strategy to support women.

The authors highlighted the fact that obesity tended to be a common theme in all of the health issues they explored and stressed that action is needed to prevent obesity. Therefore the report made the recommendation that the Government should include obesity in its national risk planning.  This led to the many media headlines this week stating that “Obesity is the biggest threat to women’s health” and that “obesity is as dangerous as our terror threat”.

We were very happy that the Chief Medical Officer’s report focused on women’s health, a very important area and hope that her recommendations are taken forward to ensure that we improve the health and wellbeing of all women. We were disappointed that key issues such as fibroids were excluded from this report and we’ll continue our work in this area.

You can download her full report below.

This week the UK’s Health Committee published their report on childhood obesity setting out what action needs to be taken to tackle this ever increasing problem.  The report states that the scale of the problem requires “bold and urgent action from the Government.”

From the report we learn that a fifth of children in the UK are overweight or obese when they begin school and by the time they leave primary school a third will be overweight or obese. They also noted that deprived children are twice as likely to be obese than the least deprived children and therefore obesity is a significant contributor to health inequality.

The report also highlights the cost of obesity. Treating obesity and its consequences costs the NHS £5.1bn every year. Obesity is the main risk factor for a number of disease including diabetes and the cost of diabetes to the NHS is  £8.8bn a year.

Through their research into this area, the committee found that there are very few interventions aimed at overweight or obese children. They state that the evidence shows that healthy living campaigns tend to help those who are already making healthy choices and are not reaching those that need them.

The health committee have made a number of recommendations that focus on changing our food environment because evidence suggests this is where the most attention is needed. Their nine recommendations include:
–  Strong controls on price promotions of unhealthy food and drink
–  Tougher controls on marketing and advertising of unhealthy food and drink
–  A centrally led reformulation programme to reduce sugar in food and drink
–  A sugary drinks tax on full sugar soft drinks, in order to help change behaviour, with all proceeds targeted to help those children at greatest risk of obesity
–  Labelling of single portions of products with added sugar to show sugar content in teaspoons
–  Improved education and information about diet
–  Universal school food standards
–  Greater powers for local authorities to tackle the environment leading to obesity
–   Early intervention to offer help to families of children affected by obesity and further research into the most effective interventions

We are in support of the above recommendations as obesity is a significant problem in the black community and by taking these actions we can begin to change our community’s behaviour and improve our health.

You can download the full report below.

At the end of last year we conducted a prostate cancer engagement pilot project as part of a large piece of work funded by Prostate Cancer UK to determine the most effective method of reaching the black community with the key messages about prostate cancer.

Local charities were invited to apply for funding to carry out small projects over 3-4 months and we applied for funding to focus on black churches to determine whether, in reality, this is an effective and practical environment to raise awareness of prostate cancer.

Targeting black churches has two main advantages. Firstly, if we take London as an example, a large number of London’s black population attends church regularly. The London Church Census, covering the time period 2005-2012, found that 48% of inner London’s church goers and 21% of outer London’s church goers were black¹.  Based on their figures this equates to 238,158 people from the African and African Caribbean community. This means that by targeting black churches we can reach a significant proportion of the African Caribbean community.

The second advantage of targeting churches is that it provides a very structured environment where a large number of people meet regularly. This, in theory, makes it a convenient environment to deliver health awareness messages. Additionally, many churches have developed their institutions beyond just preaching on a Sunday. Many churches have Men’s Fellowships, Young Professional Networks, Women’s Fellowships, Over 50’s Clubs, Men’s Conferences, Women’s Conferences and social functions. This means that there is the opportunity, in some churches, to select a sub-population within a church that would most benefit from a particular health message.

Whilst there are advantages to targeting black churches there are some logistical challenges. Firstly, churches tend to have a busy programme of events that will have been planned months in advance making it difficult to fit additional events into their schedule. Secondly, the ideal situation would be to deliver a presentation on a Sunday where there is access to the entire congregation, but many churches may not be able to accommodate this.  This means that awareness presentations would have to be delivered on a Saturday or during the week where only a small percentage of the congregation is likely to attend.  Through a flexible approach, being creative with the methods of engagement  and developing  long term relationships with churches it is possible to overcome some of these challenges.

The Lake Foundation being based in Croydon, where there is a diverse population and a significant number of black churches, decided to work locally and target churches in Croydon and the surrounding area.  In our pilot we worked with two churches and explored the best strategy for working with churches to raise awareness amongst their congregations.

From our pilot we  found that:

1. Engaging with black churches can be an effective way of reaching the African Caribbean community with the key messages about prostate cancer because of the potential of reaching large numbers.
2. To reach large numbers in a church setting requires the development of a long-term bespoke engagement programme.
3. There is a need to understand the structure of individual churches to ensure the best strategy is implemented to reach as many of their members as possible.
4. Engaging with churches may include targeting Sunday services for maximum reach and/or organising awareness sessions on a weekday/Saturday to ensure members have a more in-depth knowledge of prostate cancer.

 Recommendations

Overall The Lake Foundation recommended that Prostate Cancer UK explores developing a structured awareness program for African Caribbean churches in the UK or contracting this work out to community organisations. Whilst this may require significant time, personnel and resources we believe it is an effective way of reaching the black community.

Our specific recommendations:

Target Sunday Services

This pilot has shown that targeting Sunday services would ensure large numbers of people are reached but with limited information because of the time constraints of fitting into the Sunday service’s programme

Targeting churches successfully on a Sunday would require two approaches:

• A short presentation during all their Sunday services
• Setting up an information table throughout the day on a Sunday

Specific recommendations:

• Develop a  5-7 minute presentation that could be used for Sunday services
• Develop an easy method to measure the impact of delivering short presentations at a Sunday service
• Be flexible and persistent

Target churches outside of a Sunday service to achieve depth of knowledge

If the aim is to deliver in-depth information about prostate cancer to church goers and if this isn’t possible through a Sunday service due to time constraints then an additional approach will need to be taken.

The pilot has shown that targeting churches through a one-off event (not on a Sunday) is not the most effective method of reaching the largest number of people, this  only reaches a small percentage of a church’s congregation.  Therefore a regular engagement programme is needed.

Specific recommendations:

• Work with individual churches to understand their structure and how best to reach their members
• Identify groups, departments, events and forums within individual churches that can provide an effective environment to raise awareness
• Organise regular events with the same church throughout the year
• Make good use of churches’ communication platforms – social media, website, newsletters, bulletins, TV stations, YouTube channels etc.

We believe that by taking a long-term, flexible and creative approach in targeting churches a significant impact can be made and we’re delighted to learn that Prostate Cancer UK will be launching a new Faith Based Outreach Project using what we learnt from this pilot. We wish them all the very best in this project and hope that is makes a significant difference in increasing cancer outcomes by facilitating early diagnosis and we’d like to thank Prostate Cancer UK for giving us the opportunity to conduct this pilot.

You can download our full report below.

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References

1.       Brierley Consultancy, London Church Census and London City Mission, 2013. London’s Churches are Growing.Kent: Brierley Consultancy

We were absolutely delighted to be interviewed on Croydon Radio once again about the work of our charity. We featured on Worker’s Playtime this week where we discussed our mission to improve the health and wellbeing of the African and African Caribbean community and also talked about some of the support we’re offering with our cancer support group.

You can listen to a recording below,  our interview starts about an hour into the show.

We get a lot of questions about natural ways of treating and managing fibroids and in this week’s blog post we take a look at what the research tells us about the effectiveness of complementary medicine in treating the symptoms of fibroids.

Fibroids are non-cancerous growths that develop in or around a woman’s womb. They can cause a number of symptoms including pelvic (tummy) pain, infertility, heavy and/or painful periods, back pain, anaemia, constipation, frequent urination and pain during sexual intercourse.

The exact cause of fibroids is unknown but research does suggest that fibroids are caused by a combination of genetic, lifestyle and hormonal factors.  Those most at risk of developing fibroids are: black women, those who are overweight, women of child bearing age (particularly women who are 25-45 years old), those with a family history of fibroids and women who haven’t given birth.

There are several treatment options for fibroids these include a hysterectomy, myomectomy, embolization, endometrial ablation and new MRI-based treatments. Some of these treatments such as a hysterectomy and endometrial ablation result in infertility and because of this as well as unease with medical procedures, many women are exploring less invasive more “natural” options for managing their fibroids, but are these effective. What does research tells us about “natural” methods, more formally known as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), for treating fibroids?

What Does the Research Tells Us?

To explore this area we’ll look at one recent research paper which was published in 2014 in the European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology and Reproductive Biology and is entitled ‘Use of Medicine, Surgical and Complementary Treatments among Women with Fibroids’.  This paper summarised a study of 933 premenopausal women aged 31 to 54 with symptomatic fibroids. In this study women took part in face-to-face interviews every year for up to eight years to assess their symptoms following use of the treatment they opted for.

Researchers explored and compared the effect of CAM, Western Medicine and uterus-preserving surgeries. They classified CAM as the use of exercise, herbs, diet, acupuncture and physical therapy; Western medicine included hormonal contraception, analgesics and narcotic pain medicine; and uterus-preserving surgeries included myomectomy, embolization and endometrial ablation.

The majority of women in this study, 57%, didn’t have a hysterectomy or uterus-preserving surgery. The majority of these women used Western medicine to treat their symptoms and the most commonly used type of Western medicine used was anti-inflammatory analgesics followed by narcotic pain medicine.  Fifty percent of women who used the anti-inflammatories said it made their symptoms “a lot” better, but 10% were bothered “a lot” or “some” by the side effects. For women who used narcotics, 60% said it made their symptoms “a lot” better but 30% were bothered “a lot” or “some” by the side effects. Fifty-five percent of women who used the combined hormonal contraception said it made them feel “a lot” better, but 22% were bothered “a lot” or “some” by the side effects. Finally, the progestin IUD was the most effective with 71% of women who used it saying it made them feel “a lot” better, but 24% were bothered by the side effects.

CAM was used by a significant number of women to treat their fibroid-related symptoms. The most common methods used were exercise, herbs and diet. Improvements in symptoms were lower than that observed for Western medicine with 39% of women trying exercise, 38% of women trying herbs, 43% of those trying dietary changes, 45% trying acupuncture and 41% trying physical therapy  saying it made their symptoms “a lot” better, and as expected bothersome side effects were rare, less than 5% in all CAM therapies.

When looking at surgery, women who underwent uterus-preserving surgery had a greater improvement of pelvic symptoms compared to women who used Western medicine or CAM, but the researchers noted that despite this observation women who used Western medicine or CAM“observed significant improvements in pelvic problems as well as dyspareunia (pain during sex), pelvic pressure, bladder pain and menstrual cramps.”

In explaining how CAM works in improving symptoms, it was stated that some foods, vitamins and minerals can decrease the production of prostaglandins which cause a number of fibroids-related symptoms.

Based on their  finding the researchers concluded that “uterus-preserving fibroid surgery is effective, but many symptomatic women can be successfully treated with non-surgical management, including complementary and alternative therapy”

From this research study we can see that diet, exercise, acupuncture, herbs and physical therapy may be effective in some women at treating fibroid-related symptoms. Women wanting to explore any of these as an option should have a discussion with their doctor.

We do recognise that what’s missing from this study is the detail around what herbs and dietary changes women tried and we’ll be contacting the researchers to get some more information about this.

You can read the full paper by downloading it below.

If you’re running a Public Health, health, wellbeing or wellness project, program, campaign, blog or non-profit organisation and need some project management support, then please get in touch with us.  We can help you plan, implement, manage, monitor and evaluate any activity, project, program or campaign. Or, if you just need some project tasks completed such as someone to write literature reviews, project reports, position papers, industry reports, conduct internet-based research or other administrative tasks, then please do get in touch with us.

Previous Projects

Project description:  Analysed focus group data and produced a  report highlighting insights from a series of global and regional consultation on adolescent’s well-being (September to October 2020)

Client Feedback: “Amazing.”

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Project description: Developed questions for a short online survey for a new podcast (June 2020)

Client Feedback: “Excellent.”

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Project description:  Assisted with the development of  resources and guidelines for the UN MGCY digital consultation series on adolescent well-being (May to June 2020)

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Project description: Created three short animated videos raising awareness of the harms of sweet drinks for the Ministry of Health (February 2020 to April 2020 )

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Project description: Conducted an evaluation for an FGM campaign (February 2020)

Client feedback: “I am very impressed. This is a very thorough evaluation.”

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Project description: Prepared an event sponsorship proposal for Dolce and Gabbana for a small NGO in Texas (January 2020)

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Project description: Developed 3 short global health quotes (approx 50 words) for a media campaign  on the theme ‘how will technology change our health and wellbeing in the future?’ (January 2020)

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Project description: Researched and catalogued behavioural interview questions (August 2019)

Client feedback: “Thank you for your thorough work!”

More Information

You can email us or complete the form below.

Are you conducting a qualitative study? Need some help with some of the tedious tasks? We can help with any of the following:

• Transcribing research interviews
• Coding transcribed data
• Preparing patient information material (information sheets and consent forms)
• Emailing research participants and following up
• Administrative tasks

We also help non-profits conduct research to evaluate their projects and interventions, prepare grant reports, project reports and more!

What Our Clients Have Said About Us

Project description:  Analysed focus group data and produced a  report highlighting insights from a series of global and regional consultation on adolescent’s well-being (September to October 2020)

Client Feedback: “Amazing.”

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Project description: Research Evaluation Workgroup Leader (August 2020)

Client feedback: “Abi provided solid ideas for our research and evaluation needs. Many thanks, Abi!”

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Project description: Conducting an Evaluation for a Health Campaign (February 2020)

Client feedback: “I am very impressed. This is a very thorough evaluation.”

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Project description: Research and catalogue behavioural interview questions (August 2019)

Client feedback: “Thank you for your thorough work!”

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Project description: Content analysis coding ( September 2019)

Client feedback: “Their work is great, they keep you in the loop throughout the project. A job well done.”

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Project description: African and Caribbean Cancer Awareness and Outreach Community Based Assessment

Client feedback:  “Thank you very much for your report, which is excellent. Many thanks and congratulations on a well thought through and presented report.” – Petra Griffiths, Director, Paul’s Cancer Support Centre

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More Information

You can email us or complete the form below.