News Archive - 26th of October 2011

Cranberry Juice May Not Prevent Cystitis

One of the first well intentioned pieces of advice that is passed on to women who develop UTIs is that cranberry juice helps cystitis.

According to a study published in the January 2011 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, this is unfortunately not the case. It is simply a response to the desperate need for an alternative to increasingly defunct allopathic approaches. Gradually people are beginning to understand the necessity of using antibiotics sparingly; they realise the impact on overall health of indiscriminately killing off bacteria and Doctors and patients are choosing to avoid the magic bullet approach to health.

“The researchers studied 319 otherwise healthy college women, with a mean age of 21 years, who were diagnosed with acute UTI at the Michigan Health Service laboratory between August 2005 and October 2007. They observed the participants for 6 months or until a second infection occurred and assumed that 30% of the women would experience another UTI during the observation period.

The subjects were randomly assigned to drink 8 ounces of 27% low-calorie cranberry juice cocktail (n = 155) or the same amount of a placebo juice (n = 164) at 2 times a day throughout the 6-month follow-up. Self-collected vaginal and rectal specimens and a clean-catch midstream urine specimen were presented by the women at baseline and at 3 months and 6 months. These were cultured to determine the presence of uropathogens.” Medscape Medical News

The interesting finding was that cranberry juice drinkers had a greater recurrence of cystitis and UTIs:

• The recurrence rate was 16.9%
• The cranberry juice drinkers had a slightly higher recurrence rate (20.0%)
• Symptoms reported up to 1 month or longer did not differ much between the groups
• Women who had 2 or more previous UTIs, the risk for occurrence was significantly but cranberry juice had no significant impact on those with or without such a history.
• So why does the idea that cranberry juice is useful against Cystitis and UTIs still persist? Is it to do with old studies or perpetuated wisdom that we find hard to let go of.
• We find the most compelling evidence is to do with acidity of the urine.
• Cranberry juice contains ascorbic acid, which actually acidifies the urine. Most people now share the view that there is a link between acidic urine and exponential growth of gram negative bacteria.

The cycle: E.coli and Klebsiella (and some other gram negative uropathogens) have 'burst cycle' population explosions that occur under optimum feeding conditions. It goes like this - you drink cranberry or something else that makes the urine acidic - or get dehydrated and there is a build-up uric acid in the bladder. Within a short period of time when the acidic urine gets into your bladder, the E.coli in there burst into a frenzied multiplication cycle, doubling their colony size over the next 20 to 30 minutes [Evidence]. They use up the acids in your urine in the process, and pass alkalis and endotoxins into the urine. As the urine becomes more alkaline, and the bacteria are effectively living in their own waste, they gradually become semi-dormant, slowing down their multiplication rates by as much as 100%. You take another drink of Cranberry or eat some more cranberry tablets, and start the process off again. It's not that they can't metabolise alkalis, but they don't seem to be so efficient at that.

In conclusion, the controversy continues, with the ESFA looking to Ocean Spray to modify its claims with regard to Cranberry Juice and Cystitis and with some professionals (increasingly less and less) still recommending Cranberry.

We think that our Grandmothers were right; lemon barley …. in fact, alkalise the urine!

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