Urinary tract infections often cause you to need to urinate more often than usual
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Pain that persists even after a urinary tract infection appears to be cured may be caused by an overgrowth of nerve cells in the bladder.
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are most commonly caused by bacteria. Escherichia coli From the feces, it reaches the urethra, bladder, and kidneys. Common symptoms include pain when urinating and an urge to urinate more frequently than usual. These infections primarily affect women, but About half of them will develop a urinary tract infection at some point in their lives.
“One of the big problems with urinary tract infections is that the recurrence rate is very high,” he says. Soman Abraham At Duke University, North Carolina. “However, after treatment, some people may experience the same symptoms of a urinary tract infection even if the infection is gone.”
To understand the root of the ongoing symptoms, Abraham and his colleagues reported persistent pelvic pain due to recurrent urinary tract infections, even though examination revealed no pain.8 analyzed bladder tissue biopsies taken from human women. Escherichia coli in their urine. They also collected biopsies from three women who were not known to have had urinary tract infections. The study did not include transgender people.
The researchers found that women with persistent UTI symptoms had an abnormal overgrowth of nerve cells in their bladders compared to other women. These nerve cells also contained high levels of a peptide called substance p, which causes pain and inflammation.
The researchers then gave the mice recurring urinary tract infections and found that they showed similar persistent signs of pain even after the infection had subsided. When the researchers looked closely at the mouse bladders, they found that immune cells called mast cells, which are located near nerve cells, were highly activated. Mast cells produce so-called nerve growth factors, which stimulate the production of nerve cells.
Antibiotics used to treat UTIs are often less selective for the bacteria they target, affecting beneficial bacterial strains around nerve cells. This damages nerve cells, causing mast cells to work overtime to help replace them, Abraham says.
In the final part of the experiment, the researchers induced urinary tract infections in another set of mice before treating them with a compound that suppresses the production of nerve growth factor. He then induced two more urinary tract infections and found that the mice showed no signs of lingering pain.
The research team hopes the results will help develop effective treatments to prevent ongoing symptoms in people. “You can actually prevent these nerves from growing, which can prevent pain and urinary frequency,” Abraham says.
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Source: www.newscientist.com
