Women later diagnosed with endometriosis used more antidepressant and anxiety medication than other women, with the pattern emerging years before diagnosis.

The difference was evident up to 10 years before diagnosis and continued for a decade afterwards, according to a large Danish registry-based study involving 136,842 women.

Women with the condition also had substantially more contact with psychiatric hospital departments than those without it.

Researchers at Aarhus University found that women with endometriosis redeemed 29 per cent more prescriptions for antidepressants and 16 per cent more for anxiety medication in the years before diagnosis.

After diagnosis, the differences rose to 40 per cent for antidepressants and 46 per cent for anxiety medication.

Marie Josiasen, PhD student at the department of public health and one of the researchers behind the study, said: “What surprised us was how clear and persistent the pattern was, and that the difference did not diminish over time. On the contrary. Women with endometriosis consistently redeemed more prescriptions for antidepressant medication than women without the disease throughout the entire period, from ten years before to ten years after diagnosis.”

The study does not provide an answer as to what causes the mental strain.

Josiasen said prolonged pain, uncertainty about the cause of symptoms and fertility problems could be among the factors contributing to psychological strain.

She said: “It’s possible that prolonged pain, uncertainty about the cause of the symptoms, and frustration over not being able to live the life one wants may be among the reasons. For some women, fertility problems can also be a major psychological burden.”

Researchers also found that the gap compared with women without endometriosis did not narrow after diagnosis. Instead, it became more pronounced in the years that followed.

Josiasen said: “A diagnosis can be a relief, but it also involves coming to terms with having a chronic illness.”

The study does not indicate whether diagnosing endometriosis earlier could reduce psychological strain.

As part of her PhD project, Josiasen will investigate the role hormonal contraception may play in the mental health of women with endometriosis.

She said: “We can see that many receive medication and are in contact with psychiatric services. But we still lack an understanding of what actually helps these women. That’s what I want to help find out.”

Calla Lily Clinical Care has joined a US$50m antibiotics programme to assess vaginal delivery of UTI treatments through its Callavid platform.

The women’s health medical technology company will evaluate whether antibiotics can be delivered directly through the vaginal wall to treat urinary tract infections (UTIs).

The project will use Callavid, the company’s intravaginal drug delivery platform, aiming to deliver treatment to the site of infection while limiting systemic exposure.

Calla Lily has been selected for Wellcome Leap’s Focused Antibiotics programme, which is exploring ways to reformulate existing antibiotics so they reach infections while sparing the gut microbiome without loss of efficacy.

Dr Serena de Gelidi, Principal Investigator and R&D Manager, Calla Lily Clinical Care

The programme is backed by US$50m and aims to investigate technologies that could reduce the unintended effects of antibiotic treatment.

UTIs are among the most common bacterial infections in women. According to the source material, women are prescribed almost 40 per cent more antibiotics than men between the ages of 16 and 54.

Calla Lily will assess whether Callavid can deliver antibiotics through the vaginal wall while bypassing gastrointestinal transit and first-pass metabolism.

The company expects the approach could keep systemic exposure below 5 per cent.

There is currently no first-line UTI antibiotic available in a mass-manufactured vaginal formulation, according to Calla Lily.

The company said a successful project could contribute to the wider programme’s goal of reducing antibiotic-driven resistant infections by up to 40 per cent a year.

Callavid has a patented, leak-free, tampon-like design intended to deliver medicines and hormones through the vagina.

The platform is already being assessed in the NIHR-funded FREEDOM trial, which is studying vaginal progesterone delivery using Callavid.

That study began in April 2026 and is examining safety, user acceptability and drug absorption. According to the company, it has passed its safety stopping rule and 90 per cent of patients have completed their first round of dosing.

Dr Lara Zibners, co-founder and chair of Calla Lily Clinical Care, said: “Women are disproportionately impacted by urinary tract infections, yet the consequences of that repeated systemic exposure have been largely overlooked. Organisations such as Wellcome Leap play a vital role in tackling major healthcare challenges through bold innovation. We are honoured to be part of the Focused Antibiotics programme and to explore the potential of Callavid in a foundational antibiotic application, demonstrating how women’s health innovations can deliver benefits far beyond fertility and reproductive care.

Thang Vo-Ta, co-founder and chief executive of Calla Lily Clinical Care, said: “Being selected by Wellcome Leap, one of the world’s most ambitious health innovation funders, is a significant validation of what we are building at Calla Lily Clinical Care. Our ambition has always been for Callavid to become the defining platform for intravaginal drug delivery across a wide range of indications. The Focused Antibiotics programme gives us the ideal partner to pursue one of the most consequential of those indications: treating the world’s most common bacterial infection in women while helping to address a global resistance crisis that, left unchecked, could claim eight million lives annually by 2050. This marks a pivotal moment in demonstrating that when you solve for women, you solve for everyone.”

The project will be led by Dr Serena de Gelidi, principal investigator and R&D manager at Calla Lily Clinical Care.

She will be supported by Professor Andrew Lewis, principal scientist at the company and an international authority on drug-eluting systems, with 58 patents and more than 260 peer-reviewed publications.

Higher coffee consumption has been linked to lower body fat, greater muscle mass and differing sex hormone patterns in men and women in a Finnish study.

Researchers found people who drank more coffee had lower levels of total and visceral fat, the fat stored around internal organs, as well as greater skeletal muscle mass.

These associations were seen even though participants had a similar body mass index (BMI), a measure of weight relative to height.

The University of Oulu study analysed data from 2,264 people aged 46 who were part of the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966, looking at habitual consumption alongside circulating metabolites, cardiometabolic risk markers and sex hormones.

In both men and women, higher consumption was correlated with lower circulating levels of branched-chain amino acids.

Persistently high levels of these molecules have previously been linked to insulin resistance, when the body responds less effectively to insulin, and a higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

The strongest differences between the sexes were seen in men. Higher consumption was linked to a more favourable glucose and insulin profile, higher total and bioavailable testosterone and increased levels of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG).

SHBG is a protein that carries sex hormones such as testosterone through the bloodstream and influences how much hormone is available for the body to use.

At the same time, free testosterone and the free androgen index were modestly lower in men.

Among women, hormone associations were more limited, mainly involving higher SHBG and lower measures of free androgens, a group of hormones that includes testosterone.

Luca Verroest, lead author of the study and doctoral researcher at the University of Oulu, said: “Coffee is consumed by millions of people every day, yet we still know surprisingly little about how it relates to our metabolism and hormones.

“What stood out in our findings was a distinct hormonal signature that didn’t disappear even after we took into account BMI and lifestyle factors, with several of these associations differing between men and women.”

The researchers said hormonal pathways could partly explain the relationship between consumption and metabolic health.

However, the research was observational, meaning it can identify associations but cannot establish that drinking coffee caused the biological differences seen among participants.

The study is particularly relevant in Finland, one of the world’s highest coffee-consuming countries, where annual consumption averages around 11.8 kilograms per person.

Researchers are now investigating whether coffee itself drives the biological changes and which compounds could be responsible, initially using animal models.

The longer-term aim is to move to human intervention studies, although the researchers said further research would be needed before the findings could be used to inform dietary recommendations.