5 Foods Rumored To Help Keep Your Ladyparts Healthy, Examined

Yogurt

We’ve all heard claims about the health benefits of kombucha — that it can improve your mood, soothe your arthritis, get you backstage at concerts because it went to high school with the bouncer — but you may not know that some people think the fermented tea is good for what ails your vagina, too. Some kombucha proponents claim that the drink can help prevent yeast infections. For those of us who spend a decent chunk of every year helplessly clawing at our itchy pink bits, the idea of preventing that entire mess by chugging a health drink sounds appealing. But does it actually work?
Like most of the other alleged health benefits of kombucha, the fermented tea’s positive impact on your Bonnaroo is contested. Some folks claim that kombucha is helpful because it contains probiotics. However, other folks —including the writers of the Integrative Medicine page on the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center website — think that kombucha could induce yeast infections in drinkers, possibly due to the amount of sugar used in flavoring most commercial versions of the drink.
This set of contradictory evidence is pretty much par for the course when it comes to assessing a food’s impact on your vaginal health. While experts agree that consuming an excessive amount of sugar can lead to yeast infections — especially if you’re diabetic or pre-diabetic — there’s little definitive research about what will improve the pH levels in your vagina, which can help good vaginal bacteria thrive and cause bad bacteria (the ones that cause yeast infections and bacterial vaginosis) to die dramatically, a la Darth Vader. But the five foods below are thought by many to play a role in maintaining vaginal health — and even if they don’t do anything for you, hey, at least it was an excuse to eat some kimchi.

1. Yogurt

What It’s Supposed To Do: Help prevent bacterial vaginosis and yeast infections by encouraging the growth of good vaginal bacteria via probiotics.
What The Research Says: You’ve seen the ads touting the mystical feminine health properties of this or that brand of yogurt, which is then noted to be full of probiotics. But all yogurts with live and active cultures in them are actually probiotic (and thus, full of the kind of bacteria that can theoretically help your vagina maintain a healthy pH balance).
Should You Eat It?: Though research about whether eating yogurt actually prevents yeast infections is still inconclusive, throwing back a container of yogurt without added sugar certainly won’t hurt you (and yes, some of the research that supports eating yogurt to improve your vaginal health also supports applying it directly to your goods).Please Click “Next”or “Open”To Read More