Incontinence is an inconvenience associated with aging, especially for women. Indeed, as the study we’re going to talk about today noted:

❝Estrogen deficiency during menopause, aging, reproductive history, and factors increasing intra-abdominal pressure may lead to structural and functional failure in the pelvic floor.❞

~ Dr. Mari Kuutti et al.

However, that was just the “background”, before they got the study going, because…

❝Lifestyle choices, such as eating behavior, may contribute to pelvic floor disorders. The objective of the study was to investigate associations of eating behavior with symptoms of pelvic floor disorders, that is, stress urinary incontinence, urgency urinary incontinence, fecal incontinence, and constipation or defecation difficulties among middle-aged women.❞

~ Ibid.

How the study went

The researchers examined 1,098 Finnish women aged 47–55. It was a cross-sectional observational study, so no intervention was made, just: gathering data and analysing it. They examined:

• Eating behavior (i.e. what one’s diet is like; their questionnaire was quite comprehensive and the simplified conclusion doesn’t do that justice)
• Food consumption frequency (i.e. temporal patterns of eating)
• Demographic variables (e.g. age, education, etc)
• Gynecological variables (e.g. menopause status, hysterectomy, etc)
• Physical activity variables (e.g. light, moderate, heavy, previous history of no exercise, regular, competitive sport, etc)

With those things taken into account, the researchers crunched the numbers to assess the associations of dietary factors with pelvic floor disorders.

What they found

Adjusting for possible confounding variables…

• those with disordered eating patterns (e.g. overeating, restrictive eating, swinging between the two behaviors) were 50% higher chance of developing urinary incontinence than the norm
• those who more frequently consumed ready-made foods got 50% higher chance of developing urinary incontinence than the norm
• those who ate fruits daily enjoyed a 20% lower chance of urinary incontinence than the norm

So, in practical terms:

• practice mindful eating
• avoid ready-made foods
• enjoy fruit

You can read the paper in full here (it obviously goes into a lot more detail, and also covers other things beyond the scope of this article, such as fecal incontinence or, conversely, constipation—needless to say, the same advice stands in any case):

Association of eating behavior with symptoms of pelvic floor disorders in middle-aged women: An observational study

As for why this works the way it does: the study focused on the association and only hypothesized the question of “how”, but they did write a bit about that too, and it is almost certainly mostly a matter of gut health vs inflammation.

We really only have room for that kind of one-line summary here, but do read the paper if you’re interested, as it also talks about other dietary factors that had an impact, with the above-listed items being the topmost impactful factors, but for example (to take just one snippet of many possible ones):

❝In particular, saturated fatty acids (SFA) and cholesterol increased the risk for symptoms❞

~ Ibid. ← so do read it, for many more snippets like this!

What else does and doesn’t work

We covered a little while back the question of whether it is strengthening to hold one’s pee, or better to go whenever one feels the urge, and the answer is clear:

To Pee Or Not To Pee

Meanwhile, supplements on the other hand are a mixed bag; there are some that probably help, and others, not so much:

What’s in the supplements that claim to help you cut down on bathroom breaks? And do they work?

Want to do more?

Check out these previous articles of ours:

Pelvic Floor Exercises (Not Kegels!) To Prevent Urinary Incontinence

and

Keeping Your Kidneys Happy: It’s About More Than Just Hydration! ← important at all ages, but especially relevant after 60

Take care!

The Hats Of Wrath

Your adrenal glands are two little hat-shaped glands that sit on top of your kidneys (like your kidneys are wearing them as hats, in fact).

They produce adrenaline, as you might have guessed, and also cortisol and aldosterone, which you might or might not have known, as well as some miscellaneous corticosteroids that are beyond the scope of today’s article.

Fun fact! For a long time, doctors thought adrenal glands were much larger than they usually are, because of learning anatomy from corpses that were dissected, but invariably the corpses were those of poor people, especially criminals, whose adrenal glands were almost always overworked and swollen.

You don’t want yours to be like that.

What goes wrong

Assuming you don’t have a rare disorder like Addison’s disease (in which the adrenal glands don’t produce enough of the hormones they’re supposed to), your adrenal glands will usually not have trouble producing enough adrenaline et al.

However, as we learned from the Victorian vagabonds, they can also have no problems producing too much—much like any organ that gets overworked, however, this has consequences.

Hopefully you’re not living a life of stressful crime on the streets, but maybe you have other reasons your adrenal glands are working overtime, such as any source of chronic stress, bad sleep (can’t recharge without this downtime), overuse of stimulants (including caffeine and/or nicotine), and, counterintuitively, alcohol. All these things can tax the adrenal glands considerably.

When this happens, in the extreme we can get Cushing’s syndrome, characterized by the symptoms: hypertension, cortisol-based fat distribution i.e. especially face and abdomen, weakness, fragile easily irritable skin, hair loss and/or hirsutism, paradoxically, and of course general fatigue.

In the non-extreme, we get all the same symptoms just to a lower level, and experience what the medical profession is begging us not to call “Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome” because that’s not an official diagnosis, whereas if it gets a name then they’ll be expected to treat it.

What keeps things going right

Obviously, the opposite of the above, for a start. Which means:

Manage chronic stress; see: How To Manage Chronic Stress

Get good sleep; see: Why You Probably Need More Sleep

Go easy on the caffeine; see: Caffeine Mythbusting

Skip the nicotine; see: Nicotine Benefits (That We Don’t Recommend)!

Avoid alcohol; see: How To Reduce Or Quit Alcohol

There are specific vitamins and minerals that support adrenal health too; they are: vitamins B5, B6, B12, C, & D, and also magnesium and zinc.

Good dietary sources of the above include green leafy things, cruciferous vegetables*, nuts and seeds, avocados, olive oil, and if you eat fish, then also fatty fish.

In contrast, it is good to cut down (or avoid entirely) red meat and unfermented dairy.

*Unsure how to get cruciferous vegetables in more often? Try today’s featured recipe, superfood broccoli pesto

Want to know more?

A large part of adrenal health is about keeping cortisol levels down generally (except: for most of us, we can have a little hormesis, as a treat), so for the rest of that you might like to read:

Lower Your Cortisol! (Here’s Why & How)

Take care!