Exercise doesn’t just help your waistline and general health. It also helps fight urinary tract infections. That’s good news for women – more than half will get a UTI and experience those painful, burning symptoms sometime in their lifetime!
Antibiotics, drinking lots of water, and cranberry juice are all common ways that are recommended in fighting urinary tract infections. But here’s one more thing you can do if you’ve got a UTI: exercise.
A new study published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise found that people who participated in some physical activity were 10% less likely to have a UTI than those who were sedentary. The physical activity the study participants performed through the week wasn’t intense – it was just riding a bike, taking a stroll, or light gardening for about 4 hours a week. That means you don’t have to be a gym rat and work out everyday to get the benefits!
In addition, participants who had been prescribed antibiotics to treat their UTI were 21% to 32% less likely to develop an infection, compared to compared to sedentary people.
The study examined almost 19,000 people in Denmark over the course of one year.