Does sweets affect women's health during menstruation? Rumor: girls eat chocolate or other sweets during menstruation can cause dysmenorrhea and other discomfort, so they should avoid eating these foods during menstruation.
Truth: This is a popular guide to menstruation. Interestingly, the opposite of this saying is that eating chocolate or other sweets during menstruation can relieve dysmenorrhea and premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and make people feel better. It's also very popular. It's hard to tell whether it's true or not. Both of them are worth exploring. If you want to know what effect sweet food will have on your aunt, you have to start with the causes of dysmenorrhea.
How is dysmenorrhea to return a responsibility?
Menstrual pain refers to women's menstrual pain, mainly divided into two kinds: primary menstrual pain and secondary menstrual pain. Primary menstrual pain occurs when women begin to have regular menstruation, usually on the first and second day of menstruation, and most of them will relieve themselves in two or three days. This kind of pain is due to excessive secretion of prostaglandins during the period, resulting in uterine contraction and vascular contracture. Recurrent menstrual pain usually occurs after a period of no menstrual pain in women, or the uncomfortable symptoms of menstruation gradually turn into obvious abdominal pain. The pain usually starts one or two weeks before menstruation. This kind of pain usually has a pathological basis, common causes such as endometriosis. In this case, we need to see a doctor in time.
The next menstrual pain we discussed is primary menstrual pain, which is not caused by disease, but by the changes of hormone levels in the body and the strong contraction of muscles.
What happened to the dessert?
A common feature of all kinds of sweets is high sugar content. Relevant studies have pointed out that sugar can affect the body's absorption and metabolism of vitamins and minerals, and these two components can relieve muscle tension, make the uterine contraction less intense, and have a certain effect on relieving dysmenorrhea. For this reason, menstrual girls should really reduce their sugar intake [2].
But it has to be mentioned that carbohydrate intake will increase the level of a neurotransmitter called serotonin, also known as 5-HT, in the body. Studies have shown that serotonin does have a certain effect on relieving PMS [2]. In this way, there is a certain truth in the legend that eating sweet food can relieve the irritability and other symptoms caused by premenstrual syndrome and improve the mood. However, dysmenorrhea did not get the same treatment while alleviating PMS. Serotonin can promote the synthesis of prostaglandin PGE2, which is the real culprit of dysmenorrhea.
It seems that the effect of sugar on menstruation has good and bad, it is difficult to simply say to or not.
It's all prostaglandins
In fact, this title is a bit unfair to prostaglandins, because prostaglandins are divided into three series, only Series II. PG2 is the main cause of dysmenorrhea, which can aggravate the contraction of muscles and uterus; Series one PG1 and series three Pg3 are good helpers for relieving dysmenorrhea. PGE2 mentioned above is a member of PG2 family [3].
An unsaturated fatty acid called arachidonic acid is a precursor of the 'bad' prostaglandin PG2. The fatty acid is found in butter, corn, palm, coconut, soybean oil, and even chicken and eggs. We like to eat sweets such as biscuits, cakes and so on, which use a lot of butter, coconut and eggs, they will improve the level of PG2, make menstrual pain worse. A survey on dysmenorrhea among college students in Turkey does show that the incidence of dysmenorrhea among girls who love sweet food is about 1.8 times that of girls who eat less sweet food [4].
As we all know, there are many kinds of food, including some things that can relieve dysmenorrhea, such as fish oil, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds rich in linoleic acid or linolenic acid, which can promote the formation of 'good' prostaglandins PG1 and Pg3. Vitamins and a variety of minerals can also reduce muscle tension and relieve dysmenorrhea. Whole wheat containing a lot of vitamin E and B vitamins, vegetables containing calcium, magnesium and potassium, fruits containing bioflavonoids and vitamin C are good food choices [5]. If sweet food contains these nutrients, it is not only a negative effect on dysmenorrhea.
Independent chocolate
Unlike other sweets, chocolate contains theobromine, which has a special effect on dysmenorrhea. Let's discuss it separately.
Chocolate has always been a good thing for most people, whether it's dark chocolate, white chocolate, milk chocolate, or chocolate with nuts and pulp. Chocolate contains a substance called theobromine. Theobromine is a methylxanthine alkaloid, the name may make you feel very strange, but when it comes to its analogues, caffeine and theophylline contained in tea, you will feel more about this kind of substance. This kind of alkaloid has excitatory effect on nerves, so people can drink coffee to refresh themselves when they are sleepy in the morning.
What does theobromine have to do with dysmenorrhea?
An important reason for dysmenorrhea is insufficient blood supply to the uterus, which leads to insufficient oxygen supply and aggravates dysmenorrhea. Theobromine can play the role of vasodilation, thus alleviating the menstrual pain caused by this reason. In addition, theobromine has diuretic function. One of the inappropriateness caused by menstrual pain is body edema [4] (I believe many sisters have experienced it). Theobromine helps the body drain water and relieve discomfort. Theobromine can also increase a substance called cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) in the body, which is a small molecule substance that transmits information in cells. We usually call it the second messenger, which can relax smooth muscle and relieve dysmenorrhea [6] [7] [8].
In this way, theobromine is really a good thing. However, we should not forget that as an alkaloid that can excite nerves, excessive intake may bring insomnia, anxiety, restlessness and other side effects. However, theobromine is weaker than caffeine in this aspect, but as a possibility, we still need to pay attention to it.
Black, white and milk, who is the best?
Since it is aimed at the benefits of theobromine, then the choice of what kind of chocolate is also exquisite. When you buy chocolate, the most common categories are dark chocolate, white chocolate and milk chocolate. In fact, the ingredients of these three kinds of chocolate are quite different, especially black and white chocolate [9]. The main ingredient of chocolate is cocoa. Before making chocolate, cocoa is usually processed into cocoa juice through a series of processes. Cocoa juice contains 53% lipids, 1.5% theobromine, carbohydrates, protein and so on. Cocoa juice flavored with sugar is the raw material of all kinds of chocolate cakes, cookies and brownies. However, when making chocolate, cocoa juice is usually divided into two parts: cocoa butter and cocoa powder.
Cocoa butter is the lipid component in cocoa, and cocoa powder is the residual solid after most of cocoa butter is removed, and theobromine is contained in it. The proportion of cocoa butter and cocoa powder in a kind of chocolate not only determines the taste of chocolate, but also the content of theobromine. The classification standards of black chocolate, white chocolate and milk chocolate are slightly different in the United States, the European Union and other countries and regions. Generally speaking, the proportion of cocoa powder in black chocolate is the highest, followed by milk chocolate, which is mixed with a certain proportion of milk ingredients. White chocolate usually contains only cocoa butter and does not contain cocoa powder, so there is almost no theobromine in white chocolate.
It can be seen that the same is to eat chocolate, in fact, to eat the ingredients are very different. If we only consider the effect of theobromine on dysmenorrhea, then dark chocolate should be slightly better than milk chocolate, both are better than white chocolate, just don't eat nerve excited can't sleep.
Sweets are not so scary, chocolate is not so magical
In these literatures describing the relationship between food and dysmenorrhea, we often see such words as "a lot of" "excessive" "too much" and so on. Although sweet food may aggravate dysmenorrhea to a certain extent, as long as it is controlled moderately and does not eat haisai carelessly, a little bit of prostaglandin synthesized is not enough to have a significant impact on the dysmenorrhea of sisters. What's more, food also contains other nutrients that can relieve dysmenorrhea, which can offset such negative effects to a certain extent.
Chocolate containing theobromine (dark chocolate and milk chocolate) can relieve dysmenorrhea to a certain extent, but due to genetic and other factors, the number of hormone or neurotransmitter receptors is different in each person, which makes each person respond differently to the same dose of substance, and the effect is also different. In other words, a balanced and comprehensive diet is the most important thing. Even in the days when the body is relatively uncomfortable every month, it's harmless to eat a little sweet food in addition to a healthy diet as long as you don't feel uncomfortable. And it's probably unreliable to expect chocolate to significantly relieve pain.
Conclusion: this rumor has certain scientific basis, but it is a little absolute and one-sided. Although theobromine contained in chocolate can help relieve dysmenorrhea, other sweets may aggravate dysmenorrhea to a certain extent because they contain more sugar and some PG2 precursors, but they may also contain PG1 / Pg3 precursors, vitamins and minerals that can relieve dysmenorrhea. In real life, as long as the right amount of intake of these foods according to their own physical state, will not bring significant impact on dysmenorrhea.