Boric acid works for yeast infections in diabetics
Among women with diabetes, boric acid vaginal suppositories clear up yeast infections better than the prescription anti-fungal pill fluconazole, Indian researchers report in the medical journal Diabetes Care.
Dr. Ravinder Goswami, at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, and associates note that vaginal yeast infections in diabetic women are often caused by a fungal type known as Candida glabrata, and this tends to respond poorly to treatment with oral anti-fungal drugs like fluconazole.
To see if there’s a better treatment, the researchers randomly assigned 111 diabetic women with vaginal yeast infection to be treated with either a single dose of fluconazole, which is widely known by the brand name Diflucan, or daily boric acid vaginal suppositories for 14 days.
The team found that nearly two-thirds of the women had C. glabrata infections. In this group, the cure rate was 64 percent for those given boric acid suppositories compared with 29 percent in women treated with fluconazole.
The researchers conclude that “boric acid therapy should be considered as the front-line therapy” for treating vaginal yeast infections in women with diabetes.
SOURCE: Diabetes Care, February 2007.
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