watermelon is healthy for UTI, watermelon is a watery fruit, water constitutes about 91% of it, and that is very good for UTI.
also, it has a low percentage of sugars and carbohydrates (lower than the banana and the mango and most of the other fruits) which is good for the UTI, it has the beneficial vitamin C for the UTI.
but it also has the oily pigment lycopene, consuming lycopene from a watermelon in moderate amounts has no harm, in fact, watermelon has a lower percentage of lycopene than tomato and other fruits.
before we begin diving into our subject I just want to take the chance to remind people that many of the UTI incidents are caused by having a weak immune system among other things (of course) but this is one of the most important.
we cannot correct a weak immune system by eating healthy because simply our food does not contain all the vitamins and minerals necessary for strengthening our immune system.
so we will need to take these vitamins and minerals in a more concentrated way, we can achieve this by taking multivitamin tablets like centrum which is basically one of the best and most complete options for multivitamins available in the market.
take centrum once a day with food.
check out centrum price on amazon off course if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or taking other medications or supplements consult your doctor before use.
also, take centrum silver men or centrum silver women instead if you are above 50 years old.
now back to our subject.
so, lycopene is O.K. but some people may have an allergic reaction to it when they consume it in large amounts and this allergic reaction may include a sensation of bloating, diarrhea, vomiting, loss of apatite.
at the same time, many pieces of research suggest that lycopene has many health benefits for the skin, heart and especially on the prostate gland, they say that lycopene has an antioxidant effect so it can treat prostate cancer and many researchers and scientists are experimenting on it. but, until now there no conclusive evidence to these claims until now.
the safe amount of lycopene pigment that you can consume it from food sources per day is 75 mg per day, while the watermelon contains 13 mg of lycopene per wedge so try to balance how many wedges of watermelon you eat per day so that it doesn’t exceed the safe amount of lycopene that is allowed for you to consume per day. by the way, this is the watermelon wedge.
also, take into consideration that lycopene is found in other food sources especially in tomato, so if you have eaten a lot of tomatoes on a certain day you can have one or two watermelon wedges on that day, and if you didn’t have that much tomato in your food in a given day you can have 3 or 4 maybe 5 watermelon wedges on that day.
it’s worth mentioning that even if you consume more than the safe amount of lycopene from the watermelon it would not be that big of a problem, you may feel a little bit bloating may be somewhat nauseous. but I haven’t seen any dangerous side effects for it.
because in some countries people eat it like crazy, it’s considered a summer fruit for a lot of countries, it’s a very healthy watery fruit and tasty also.
WebMD site says “Lycopene is LIKELY SAFE when taken by mouth in appropriate amounts.”
back to the effects of these watermelons on the UTI being a very watery fruit makes the watermelon very healthy for the people who suffer from UTI, because as we know people who suffer from UTI need to drink a lot of water and the watermelon is composed in 91 percent of it from water, the water in it will assist in the process of rinsing the bacteria out of the body.
the high water content of the watermelon is very healthy to the UTI.
also, the vitamin C in it is very healthy too, vitamin C has a role in strengthening the immune system, watermelon has an abundance of vitamin C, the vitamin C in the watermelon helps in strengthening the immune system so that it can fight the bacteria that cause the UTI harder and then eventually killing the bacteria and getting rid of the UTI.
another benefit from vitamin C is that it makes the urine acidic, this will make it harder for the bacteria because it prefers to live in a basic environment, making the urine acidic will make it easier for the antibiotics prescribed by your doctor to kill the bacteria that caused you the UTI.
until now we have found two beneficial components of the watermelon to the UTI and they are water and vitamin C and one component that’s has a little risk for the UTI if you consume in a wrong way and that component is lycopene.
moving to the next component which is vitamin A. vitamin A has a lot of benefits to the body, generally speaking, one of its benefits is that it supports the immune system and this could have a positive effect directly on the UTI.
because the immune system is the system responsible for killing and getting rid of the bacteria including the E. coli bacteria that cause the UTI.
another advantage of the watermelon is its content of sugars and carbohydrates is lower than the banana and the mango and lower than many other fruits and this gives an advantage for the people suffering from urinary tract infections (UTI).
because sugars and carbohydrates make the body more prone to bacterial infections and other types of infections because they work against the immune system although the natural sugar that is in the watermelon is much less harmful than the refined sugar that is found in the cakes and cookies and donuts… etc.
I can say that the natural sugar that is in the watermelon has almost no harm for the UTI if you keep a reasonable intake of it.
watermelon also has a lot of potassium in it, although the potassium in the watermelon has no direct effect on the UTI. but, potassium is known to play a major role in the metabolism of sugars and glucose, so it protects us from getting diabetes and we know that diabetes is one of the causes of UTI.
most of the diabetic patients have a risk of UTI so by that we can say that the potassium in watermelon has an indirect positive effect on the UTI sufferer.
also by metabolizing the sugars and glucose potassium can strengthen the immune system against the bacteria especially the bacteria that cause the UTI.
does watermelon irritate the bladder?
the answer is no watermelon is a low acidic fruit and that acidity should cause you no harm whatsoever also in the case of someone having a UTI this acidity is helpful for them because acidity kills the bacteria that cause the UTI and the high watery content of the watermelon as I said help flush the bacteria out of your bladder or kidney.
some people say that because watermelon is acidic then it irritates the bladder, well that’s completely false information because the urine of a healthy individual is originally acidic and the acidity of the watermelon is lower than that of the urine because watermelon contains a lot of water that reduces the acidity and make it barely count as an acidic fruit.
what is the effect of watermelon on interstitial cystitis?
although nobody can say for sure. I think watermelon is great for interstitial cystitis because it contains vitamin A which is very helpful for the people suffering from interstitial cystitis. why is that?
now we have to know what is interstitial cystitis?
it’s chronic pain in the bladder region where the person who has it suffers from the urge to urinate right away and frequent urination and pressure in the bladder, there are no clear causes for it, however, it’s mostly an autoimmune disease where the body’s own immune system attack the body organs and tissues because the immune system cells can’t tell between microbes that enter the body and the body’s own organs and tissues.
now the watermelon has a high percentage of vitamin A, what does that have to do with interstitial cystitis?
vitamin A has a major function in the body in that it plays a role in T cells differentiation and proliferation, now the T cells are a part of the immune system which is responsible for preventing the immune system from attacking the body’s own organs and tissues and thereby protecting the body from autoimmune diseases like interstitial cystitis.
so by promoting T cells differentiation and proliferation vitamin A protects the body from autoimmune diseases like interstitial cystitis.
PS: differentiation is the process in which T cells are upgraded into regulatory T cells, these regulatory T cells are capable of preventing the immune system from attacking the body’s own organs. Wikipedia
watermelon is a great fruit to eat when you have a urinary tract infection the water and the vitamins and minerals that are in it is very healthy for the people suffering from UTI and despite that it contains the lycopene pigment but still the benefits of the water and vitamins and minerals in the watermelon outweigh by much the potential harms of lycopene (that’s if it has any)
also if you keep a reasonable intake of it you wouldn’t have to worry much about those harms.