Cranberry juice helps ward off urinary tract infections
Bond University researchers have added to growing evidence that drinking cranberry juice is effective in dealing with urinary tract infections.
New work by Bond University researchers has added to the growing evidence that drinking cranberry juice is an effective way to ward off urinary tract infections (UTIs).
Not only did the research find that cranberry juice was likely to help prevent UTIs, but it also indicated it could reduce the severity of the infection when it occurred.
The benefits of cranberry juice for preventing and treating UTIs is not universally accepted in medicine, so the Bond University-led study will help tip the balance toward the benefits of consuming cranberries.
The research, led by Bond’s Christian Moro, consisted of a meta analysis which pulled together the results of 20 previous studies with a total of 3091 participants globally.
Dr Moro, who is an associate professor of biomedical sciences and medicine at Bond, said the findings indicated that use of cranberry juice could help reduce the use of antibiotics to treat UTIs.
“More than half of women experience UTIs and antibiotics are a go-to treatment prescribed by doctors,” he said.
“With antibiotic resistance increasing, it is vital to identify effective non-drug interventions.
“Cranberry juice is an effective and easy intervention that should be considered for the management of UTIs.”
The work, done in conjunction with researchers at the University of Oxford and University of Helsinki, also found that drinking cranberry juice could reduce the need for antibiotics by 59 per cent.
It also found that simply drinking more water, or taking cranberry tablets, was helpful for UTIs, although these approaches were not as effective as drinking cranberry juice.
Some researchers have a theory that cranberries make it harder for the bacteria causing UTIs to adhere to the walls of the urinary tract.
The research paper, published in European Urology Focus, said: “With moderate to low certainty, the evidence supports the use of cranberry juice for the prevention of UTIs.”
About 50 per cent of women and 20 per cent of men are estimated to contract a UTI over their lifetime and in children it is the most common biological infection.
The research also adjusted its results to account for some of the studies which could have involved a conflict of interest, such as receiving support from cranberry juice companies.
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