They are very frequent inflammations in women, they can be ‘relapsing’ or, worse, ‘recurring’, they manifest themselves with an urgent need to urinate sometimes only a few drops, with intense burning and sometimes pain during urination, but also with a continuous sensation of weight in the lower abdomen and, in some cases, are characterized by the presence of blood in the urine. The reference, obviously, is to cystitis, the topic of the next episode of “Fermenti, the secret of life”, the specialized study on the complex functions of the intestinal microbiota, edited by the immunologist Mauro Minelli and shared by ADNKronos Salute.
At the basis of the inflammatory states that affect the bladder and urinary tract and which, when chronic and recurrent, are capable of causing sometimes disabling psychophysical discomfort to the people involved, there are mostly bacterial infections attributable to different microorganisms among which, first in order of notoriety, the infamous Escherichia coli stands out. Component of the large family of Proteobacteria, Escherichia coli is a microorganism which, in young adults in generally good health conditions, alone represents at least 3% of the entire intestinal bacterial flora, which is by no means a small amount. Therefore, it is foreseen that Escherichia Coli is very present in the intestine also because, in its normal appearance as a ‘commensal’ bacterium, it is called upon to perform useful physiological functions, for example, to process the foods we eat or to produce vitamin K. However, it happens that, due to particular favorable conditions for it but not for man, especially if the latter were to be immunocompromised or diabetic or equipped with a permanent urinary catheter, Escherichia coli but also other microorganisms, from commensals, can transform into agents ‘opportunistic’ pathogens able, among other things, to transmigrate from the intestine, thus making themselves responsible for pathologies affecting other areas of the body such as, for example, the bladder and urinary tract. Therefore, the hypothesis according to which cystitis is exclusively the result of a passage of bacteria from the anus to the urethra by simple anatomical contiguity is no longer tenable, since another route of infection is possible which identifies, in an intestine made permeable from damage to its walls (Leaky Gut), a completely negligible cause of the improper colonization of the urinary tract by microorganisms originating from an unbalanced intestinal flora.
Therefore, especially in cases of recurring cystitis often unsuccessfully subjected to prolonged and sometimes counterproductive antibiotic therapies, it would be advisable to consider the coexistence, in the patient, of digestive problems, if anything associated with a swollen belly and/or bowel disorders, in order to initiate adequate protocols therapeutics aimed both at treating intestinal dysbiosis in a specific and personalized way, and at preventing any new recurrences sustained, at the urinary level, by intestinal opportunistic microorganisms capable of giving rise to extralocated infections.
For all the details on the subject, please refer to the complete episode of Fermenti, which will be available on this platform from 3.00 pm on Friday 7 July.
#Cystitis #intestinebladder #axis