{"id":588829,"date":"2026-08-10T11:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/588829\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T11:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:08:17","slug":"reproductive-issues-like-cysts-and-fibroids-impact-a-majority-of-african-women-over-their-lifetimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/588829\/","title":{"rendered":"Reproductive issues like cysts and fibroids impact a majority of African women over their lifetimes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n As a teenager in Kenya, long before Evelyn Okinyi Owala became a professional bodybuilder, she attended school, spent time with friends and helped her parents around the house. But during her period each month, she said, she experienced excruciating pain, vomiting, fever, lightheadedness, heavy bleeding, pelvic pain and acne.\n <\/p>\n

\n Over time, Owala said, the pain was so severe that she struggled to breathe and passed out. She endured the pain without seeking medical help because she thought it was normal, and said it grew worse in her 20s. After years of suffering, at the age of 30, Owala finally went to see a gynecologist.\n <\/p>\n

\"Owala<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI was told I have cysts,\u201d she explained to CNN\u2019s Larry Madowo in Nairobi in May. \u201cAnd I went in for surgery. The problem is one month later, before I healed from the stitches, I had a reoccurrence of the cyst.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Owala said she was told that she needed another surgery, but her recovery and insufficient insurance coverage made that difficult. While considering her options, she began researching alternative treatments, particularly after meeting a woman who told Owala that she\u2019d undergone 13 operations.\n <\/p>\n

\n Owala said she came to believe that surgery had treated a symptom, but not \u201cthe root cause\u201d of her condition, which she said was a hormonal imbalance.\n <\/p>\n

\n Owala, whose husband is an exercise enthusiast, decided to take a page out of his playbook and hit the gym.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI started working out just \u2026 for myself, really to get myself into good health,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n She also changed her diet, cutting out sugar, vegetable and seed oils, and wheat. \u201cIt\u2019s better to eat in a particular way that the body appreciates if you\u2019re having a particular condition, so that is exactly what I did,\u201d she explained.\n <\/p>\n

\n With her new exercise routine and diet, Owala said she \u201csorted the root cause of the problem within four months.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n A return trip to the doctor and an ultrasound confirmed the cysts were gone.\n <\/p>\n

\n Owala is not alone in experiencing debilitating reproductive health problems. Ovarian cysts and uterine fibroids affect hundreds of millions of women<\/a> around the world.\n <\/p>\n

\n According to the Mayo Clinic<\/a>, ovarian cysts are sacs, usually filled with fluid, that develop in or on the surface of an ovary. They are common and often harmless, but some can rupture or cause serious symptoms, including severe pain.\n <\/p>\n

\n Uterine fibroids are noncancerous growths that develop in or around the uterus, often during a woman\u2019s reproductive years. According to the Office on Women\u2019s Health<\/a> at the US Department of Health and Human Services, an estimated 20% to 80% of women develop fibroids by age 50.\n <\/p>\n

\n Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong\u2019o, 43, is among the women who have spoken publicly about the condition.\n <\/p>\n

\"Lupita<\/p>\n

\n Nyong\u2019o has said she was diagnosed with uterine fibroids after winning an Academy Award for her performance in \u201c12 Years a Slave.\u201d She said doctors removed 25 fibroids during one operation and that she has had 77 fibroids over the course of her experience with the condition.\n <\/p>\n

\n After undergoing multiple operations, Nyong\u2019o is now advocating for greater research and access to noninvasive and minimally invasive fibroid treatments \u2014 teaming up with the nonprofit research fund the Foundation for Women\u2019s Health<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

Barriers to diagnosis and care in Africa<\/p>\n

\n African women have some of the highest rates of fibroids in the world, according to Dateline Health Africa<\/a>, a US nonprofit digital platform and health portal.\n <\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/p>\n

\n But Dr. Frances Wurie, an obstetrician-gynecologist at The Women\u2019s Place Medical Centre in Freetown, Sierra Leone, told CNN, many women in the continent remain undiagnosed because they lack access to medical care.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf they don\u2019t have the funds to go and have an ultrasound scan, it would be undiagnosed.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Cost is not the only problem. Wurie said the stigma surrounding reproductive health can also stop women from talking about the issue or getting help.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis should not be a taboo subject in this day and age, and for some reason it is, depending on where you are. It definitely can be something that people are like, \u2018Oh, I don\u2019t want to talk about it. What happens \u2026 in my private area, it\u2019s private,\u2019\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Medical professionals in Sierra Leone also must battle against deeply entrenched cultural practices that prevent women from seeing licensed practitioners. With many patients opting for treatments from traditional healers instead.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIn rural areas where that\u2019s the first point of call \u2026 somebody\u2019s going give you some sort of concoction that you\u2019re going to drink \u2026 If a patient is believing that the herbs are going to reduce the size of the fibroids, you\u2019re basically just delaying whatever complication will come in the future,\u201d Wurie said.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n In Freetown, where Wurie\u2019s private practice is based, more women who can afford medical care are choosing to undergo surgery.\n <\/p>\n

\n Wurie said she \u201cregularly\u201d performs fibroid operations on women from \u201cdifferent age groups, [at] different periods in their lives, [who have fibroids of] different sizes.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The exact cause of uterine fibroids is not fully understood, although research indicates that genetic and hormonal factors may play a role.\n <\/p>\n

\n Ovarian cysts though, are mostly caused by the menstrual cycle. Each month, the small sac in the ovary, called a follicle, releases an egg as part of the cycle. A cyst can form if the follicle doesn\u2019t release the egg, and it fills with fluid.\n <\/p>\n

\n In Sierra Leone, Wurie said, limited access to formal reproductive health education can leave young people without the information they need to understand their bodies and recognize possible symptoms.\n <\/p>\n

\n There is no \u201cnationally recognized program that goes around and discusses adolescent health or discusses any gynecological issues,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Wurie is trying to address that gap by holding educational events for young people.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cEvery three months we gather up 25, 30 girls, and sometimes boys \u2026 and we talk about just reproductive health, sexual health, reproductive rights, and that is inclusive of \u2026 hygiene, menstruation, puberty, sexual violence and [the] parts of your body,\u201d she said, adding that despite sometimes crippling cultural barriers, it\u2019s important that those lessons begin at a very young age.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThese things start from adolescence, like having these young girls be aware of their bodies and how their bodies work and what can go wrong. And if you\u2019ve established or you\u2019ve created that kind of self-awareness at a young age, it\u2019s easier for them to continue as young women,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n While Owala initially went to the gym to improve her health, as a bodybuilder, she\u2019s been called \u201cAfrica\u2019s fittest woman.\u201d In May 2019, she won the Arnold Classic Africa bodybuilding competition.\n <\/p>\n

\"Evelyn<\/p>\n

\n Owala is now making it her goal to help other women who may be suffering from the same health issues she faced.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI realized that we needed to understand women\u2019s bodies to be able to tackle most of their problems,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n She encourages women to exercise regularly and pay attention to their diets, an approach Wurie echoes.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cLifestyle is important,\u201d Wurie said. \u201cThe first thing we talked to patients about in general is lifestyle. Whether you have diabetes, whether you have hypertension \u2026 even the cancers \u2026 the first thing is make sure you\u2019re taking care of yourself. Watch what you eat, make sure you have some sort of\u2026 physical activities.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n She notes that lifestyle changes alone are not substitutes for medical care, especially in the case of fibroids.\n <\/p>\n

\n As for Owala, helping women break free of the debilitating pain that once rendered her helpless, is now her life\u2019s mission. \u201cWhen you eat well, you train, you sleep well, and all that, it\u2019s not just about how long you live, that is for God to decide. But the quality of life while you live is up to you,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a teenager in Kenya, long before Evelyn Okinyi Owala became a professional bodybuilder, she attended school, spent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60],"class_list":["post-588829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}