We’re delighted to announce that we have been awarded a grant through the Covista Caribbean Community Program to support the first 12 months of our new Women’s Wellness Community – a support group for women living with fibroids, endometriosis and PMOS (PCOS).
In this webinar, our guest speaker, Dr Stacey Bryan, will be exploring the impact that fibroids may have on a patient’s fertility and will provide guidance for patients wanting to start a family.
All are welcome to attend, you can register here – https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ETY7hVR6R2O7gD1WTppwUA
On 21st August 2021, the Global Fibroids Alliance hosted a virtual global panel discussion featuring speakers from Canada, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, Ghana, France, the UK and the US.
Panelists explored the challenges faced by women living with fibroids, how their organisations are trying to address these challenges and what is needed on a global level to improve the situation for women living with fibroids.
Panelists included:
If you missed this event, you can watch the recording below.
Join panelists from across the globe as we explore the challenges faced by women living with fibroids, best practices and what is needed on a global level to improve the situation for women living with fibroids.
We were absolutely delighted to have been featured on Loop Caribbean for our efforts to raise awareness of fibroids in St Kitts and Nevis.
The article highlights our fibroids educational event in March 2019, our recent fibroids webinar series and our recent qualitative research project.
You can read the article on Loop Caribbean here.
On Saturday 24th July 2021, we hosted a webinar on fibroids and exercise. This webinar was part of our Fibroids Awareness Month event series which aims to empower women living with fibroids with information on the lifestyle changes that may alleviate their symptoms and improve their overall health and wellbeing.
In this session, we explored the power of exercise in managing fibroids symptoms. We discussed whether exercise can be beneficial in managing fibroids symptoms and we looked at some simple, low-impact exercises that women can easily try at home through fun demonstrations of barre, yoga and other exercises.
Speakers included:
If you missed this webinar, you can watch the recording below.
Our next webinar will be held on Saturday 31st July 2021 at 11am AST. This webinar will focus on fibroids and mental health.
In this webinar, Olivia Haltman, an accredited counsellor, will help women identify, understand and address the many ways that fibroids can affect a woman’s mental health.
We’ll empower women with the tools they need to improve their emotional wellbeing and successfully navigate the challenges that living with fibroids may present – these include managing and dealing with debilitating symptoms, fertility issues, tensions within relationships and the challenges that having fibroids may create in work, home and social settings.
This is a free webinar. You can register here
On Saturday 18th July 2020, we were delighted to have assisted with the Global Fibroids Alliance’s first event which was a webinar on Fibroids and COVID-19. This webinar aimed to explore the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic may be having on women with fibroids and discussed what women can do to improve their physical and mental health during this challenging period.
Speakers on the day included:
If you missed the webinar, you can watch the recording below and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to send the Global Fibroids Alliance an email.
To keep informed of the work of GFA and to be alerted of future events, you can sign up to their newsletter here.
Over the past month, as we have been conducting our regular monitoring of the traffic to our website, we have noticed a lot of visitors are coming to our website to find out whether soursop or guava are beneficial for fibroids. So, today, we will visit published research to see if we can answer this question.
The first thing to say about this topic is there isn’t a lot of evidence-based information out there. What we found were discussions by scientists about the possibilities, there wasn’t any concrete data that could definitively answer this question.
To explore whether guava and soursop may be beneficial in treating fibroids, we will focus on one scientific paper, which was the only one we could find that was related to this topic.
This paper was published by the Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine at the Polytechnic University of Marche in Italy, in 2014.
Their paper, the ‘Use of dietary phytochemicals to target inflammation, fibrosis, proliferation, and angiogenesis in uterine tissues: Promising options for prevention and treatment of uterine fibroids?,’ is a review of a selection of substances (phytochemicals) found naturally in certain fruits and vegetables which, because of their properties, could be useful in treating and preventing fibroids.
This paper is important in our exploration because some of the phytochemicals included in the researchers’ review are found in soursop and guava.
Before we summarise the relevant information provided in this paper, we thought it would be useful to define the term phytochemical. Harvard University describes phytochemicals as:
”…plant (phyto) chemicals: compounds in plants (fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes) that contribute to their color, taste, and smell.”
Some commonly known phytochemicals are carotenoids, found in carrots, pumpkin, corn and tomatoes; flavonoids, found in citrus fruits, berries, apples and legumes and anthocyanins, which are found in berries, eggplant and red cabbage.
It is widely known that phytochemicals have a range of health benefits. These benefits include reducing our risk of heart disease, cancer and other chronic diseases and this is achieved because of their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects as well as a range of other effects.
The researchers who wrote this paper began their exploration by describing four possible factors that contribute to the development of fibroids. These are:
Researchers explained that if phytochemicals are able to address these four factors, they may be useful in preventing and treating fibroids.
Like many fruits, guava and soursop are rich in phytochemicals. Guava is known to contain the phytochemicals lycopene, quercetin, anthocyanin, and many others. Whilst soursop contains reticuline, coreximine, quercetin, gallic acid and others.
In their paper, researchers discuss a range of phytochemicals including ones that are relevant to guava and soursop – lycopene and quercetin. They explain that at the time of the publication of their paper, lycopene and quercetin have not been tested in fibroids, but based on what scientists know about these two chemicals they may be beneficial in the prevention and treatment of fibroids. This is because when we look back at the four possible ways that fibroids develop, these two phytochemicals can potentially target these processes. They have both been found to have the following effects:
Researchers couldn’t make any conclusions on these phytochemicals with regards to fibroids, but their discussion has identified these and other phytochemicals which could be beneficial in the prevention and treatment of fibroids. These include:
They stated that based on the information they presented, there is a need to understand whether these phytochemicals are indeed beneficial for fibroids and this should be explored through future studies that carefully and accurately determine their mechanism of action and effectiveness in the treatment and prevention of fibroids.
This research study has raised the idea that the phytochemicals in soursop and guava may be beneficial in the treatment and prevention of fibroids. It doesn’t mean that eating soursop and guava will cure your fibroids, the reason for this, and this is discussed in the research paper, is that when you eat these fruits we don’t know if your body is absorbing enough of these phytochemicals to have a significant impact on the growth and development of fibroids.
What we can say is that if you have fibroids, if you haven’t already, we recommend that you adopt a healthy diet that is rich in fruits and vegetables, this can include soursop and guava, but should include cruciferous vegetables. Studies have shown that making dietary changes can be helpful in improving some of the symptoms of fibroids as can introducing more exercise into your routine.
It is also recommended that women with fibroids avoid certain foods such as alcohol, caffeine, red meat and foods that may contain high levels of hormones like oestrogen.
If you have fibroids and would like to explore dietary changes and exercise as a way of managing your symptoms, please speak to your doctor first. She/he will be able to advise you on the best approach based on your specific situation as the success of these approaches will depend on the size of your fibroids and other factors. You may also want to speak to a registered dietitian who along with your doctor will be able to provide some advice on the dietary changes that you can make.
Were you one of the people looking for information on fibroids and guava and/or soursop? Was this article helpful? Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment below. We would love to hear from you.
Following on from the publication of our ‘Fibroids and COVID-19’ infographic, we’re delighted to notify you of the publication of our latest fibroids infographic.
This infographic, entitled ‘What You Need to Know About Fibroids’ covers what fibroids are, the different types of fibroids, risk factors, symptoms and tips for women living with fibroids.
The aim of this resource is to provide women with a simple overview of fibroids and to address the concern that women expressed to us about the lack of accurate reliable information on this important women’s health issue.
We had the pleasure of working with newly qualified doctor, Sofia Miah, to create this resource. Sofia carried out some desk-based research in order to prepare the content and designed the infographic.
Sofia’s experience of working on this short project highlighted some very important lessons for those working in the healthcare field, with Sofia stating that:
“As a newly qualified doctor with clinical experience in women’s health, I was shocked by the higher incidence of fibroids among African-Caribbean women and how little it is spoken about in medical education and the workplace. Black women are disproportionately affected by fibroids and more likely to have hysterectomies. This is worsened by the lack of high-quality, comprehensive and accessible information out there on fibroids for patients. As healthcare professionals, we need to be more open and vocal about the impact of fibroids on patients and their quality of life. We need to be better.”
We are very grateful to Sofia for working with us on this project and to the experienced gynaecologist who reviewed the infographic. You can download the infographic below and if you have any questions or comments about this resource, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us by sending us an email
We’re delighted to announce the publication of our new ‘Fibroids and COVID-19’ infographic.
COVID-19 has created a lot of anxiety, especially for people with pre-existing health conditions. Whilst there has been a lot of information published on the impact of COVID-19 on people with various health conditions, we noticed an information gap with regards to fibroids and therefore we sought to address this.
Working with Mariana Ndrio, a second-year medical student at the UMHS in St Kitts and Nevis, we did some desk-based research to understand the possible impact of COVID-19 on women with fibroids and, based on this, provide some practical tips to help women manage during this pandemic, which experts have warned is likely to last for another 12-18 months.
Whilst carrying out her research to prepare this infographic, Mariana faced one major challenge:
“As a medical student that remains generally impressed by the increasing amount of existing medical and scientific knowledge, researching gynaecological diseases such as fibroids have led me to a stark realization: that despite the high prevalence of uterine fibroids among women, not enough high-quality data is available to formulate evidence-based guidelines that address patients’ needs adequately.”
Mariana very clearly describes what we hear from women all the time when it comes to fibroids – the lack of accurate, reliable information. We have been slowly trying to address this issue by creating a set of information resources which we are improving and expanding to ensure women have the best information possible.
You can download our new fibroids infographic below and we created a list of the references we used to assist us in preparing the content for the infographic (you can find this below too). Additionally, this resource has been reviewed by Dr Oduntan, one of the District Medical Officers here in St Kitts and Nevis.
Coming soon will be a couple more infographics which will focus on various aspects of fibroids.
If you have any questions or comments about this new infographic, please do leave them in the comments section below, or if you have fibroids and would like to share the experience you’ve had during this pandemic maybe by writing an article about your experience, then please do send us an email and we’d be happy to work with you on this.
For some additional information on this topic, you can read Mariana’s recent blog post, ‘Fibroids and COVID-19: Tips of Self-Care and Managing Stress’.
We are committed to making all our resources free and easily accessible to all those who need it. You can help us with this commitment by making a donation which will go towards the costs of producing our health information which includes the costs of design, printing and editing. You can make a donation here. Thank you for any help that you can provide. Please note that our online payments are managed by JAD Cash, a comprehensive e-money solution for the Eastern Caribbean countries. All online payments will, therefore, be processed in Eastern Caribbean Dollars (XCD).
