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Page 17
| elderly people experiencing UTIs. Similarly, folks with diabetes may have three times as many infections. |
| Hospital catheterization and the use of a diaphragm with spermicides also increase the frequency of infections. |
| During the development of urinary tract infections, a key factor is that infectious bacteria develop the ability to adhere to the mucous membranes of the urethra and bladder, thereby avoiding the normal resistance that combines to flush them out in the urine. |
| And finally, the colon bacteria that cause most UTIs (E. coli alone is found as the dominant organism 90 percent of the time) bind to carbohydrate or sugar residues on the surface of the lower urinary tract mucosa. It isn't only diabetes that can raise the level of sugar in the urine; simple bingeing on sweets can result in a short-term flushing of urinary sugar as well. Many a urinary tract infection follows the day after a late-night binge on Oreo cookies. |
| It is unfortunate that the primary bacterial causes of UTIs are endemic organisms. Like the lactobacilli in the vagina and urethra, E. coli are a necessary part of stable flora in the colon. It's just that, when they cause an infection in the urinary tract, there are no antibodies made to resist them and all the tissues there can do is respond to their presence with healing (and painful) inflammation. There can be no specific bacterial resistance formed to a normally ''friendly'' bug . . . even if it shows up in the wrong place. One of the flaws in dosing oneself with urinary antibiotics for such a reoccurring infection is that it strips away all the friendly bacteria, and the E. coli are just sitting there an inch or so away, a constant potential for reinfection. Moreover, antibiotics make no change in the weakened ecology of the urethra and bladder, fail to strengthen native urinary tract resistance and have no effect on the metabolic and habit factors that allow infections to begin with. |
| It has been my observation over the years that women with reoccurring UTIs also suffer a high rate of vaginal |
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