Prevent Urinary Tract Infections with cranberries

If you are one of those who often suffer from urinary tract infections (UTIs), then you must start having cranberries, as a new study has found that it can be nutritional approach for reducing symptomatic UTIs.

Weber Shandwick Worldwide researchers have found that drinking an eight-ounce (240 ml) glass of cranberry juice a day reduces symptomatic UTIs by nearly 40 percent in women with recurrent UTIs, reducing the burden of UTIs and reducing the antibiotic use associated with treating recurrent UTIs.

Dr. Kalpana Gupta, infectious disease specialist and Professor of Medicine at Boston University's School of Medicine, said currently, the primary approach to reducing symptomatic events of UTI is the use of chronic antibiotics for suppression, an approach associated with side effects and development of antibiotic resistance.

She added that the research has proved that consuming one eight-ounce (240 ml) of cranberry juice a day reduces the number of times women suffer from repeated episodes of symptomatic UTIs and avoid chronic suppressive antibiotics.

Dr. Gupta believes that cranberries can help reduce the worldwide use of antibiotics and significantly improve the quality of life for women, who suffer from recurrent UTI symptoms.

Researchers set out to find whether recurrent (or repeat) UTI sufferers could be protected from repeat infections by drinking cranberry juice. Participants were all healthy women with an average age of 40, who had experienced at least two UTIs within the past year.

During the study, participants were randomly chosen to drink a daily dose of eight ounces (240 ml) of either cranberry juice or a "placebo" beverage without cranberries.

The rate of UTIs decreased significantly among the cranberry drinkers, with just 39 diagnoses during the six-month study compared with 67 in the placebo group.

According to Gupta, those who suffer from UTIs can feel confident that this nutritional approach is a potential solution, further validating more than 50 years of well-documented cranberry research.

The study is published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition journal.