Good news for cranberry juice lovers

Here’s something unimportant that nobody knows about me: I must have cranberry sauce with my turkey. Roast turkey dinner, turkey club sandwiches, hot turkey sandwiches. There’s something missing if I can’t have that cranberry sauce with any of these. And it has to be jellied. There’s something about the sauce with the whole berries in it that offends my palate. It’s funny, too, because I do like dried cranberries and use them in chicken and turkey recipes.

I’ve never been a big fan of cranberry juice cocktail, but I will have it for breakfast in a restaurant if they don’t have fresh-squeezed orange juice. Oh, yes, I’m finicky about my oranges, too.

A study I wrote about recently has, however, given me a different perspective about that chilled glass of cranberry juice cocktail. The research, featured in this week’s ACS PressPac, confirms through a clinical trial what has been theorized for years: Cranberry juice cocktail helps prevent urinary tract infections (UTIs). Now, I never have had a UTI, but it can’t hurt to be safe…

Scientists reported new evidence on the effectiveness of that old folk remedy — cranberry juice — for urinary tract infections at the ACS’ 240th National Meeting. “A number of controlled clinical trials — these are carefully designed and conducted scientific studies done in humans — have concluded that cranberry juice really is effective for preventing urinary tract infections,” said Terri Anne Camesano, Ph.D., who led the study. “That has important implications, considering the size of the problem and the health care costs involved.”

Estimates suggest that urinary tract infections (UTIs) account for about 8 million medical visits each year, at a total cost of more than $1.6 billion. Camesano, who is with the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, said the study set out to shed light on how cranberry juice fights E. coli, the most common cause of UTIs. The study involved growing strains of E. coli in urine collected from healthy volunteers before and after consumption of cranberry juice cocktail. The scientists then tested the E. coli for their ability to stick together and form biofilms. Biofilms are thin, slimy layers that provide an environment for bacteria to thrive.

The scientists concluded that cranberry juice cocktail prevents E. coli from sticking to other bacteria and the surface of a plastic petri dish. E. coli that doesn’t stick has a better chance of being flushed out of the urinary track. The results suggest that the beneficial substances in cranberry juice could reach the urinary tract and prevent bacterial adhesion within 8 hours after consumption of cranberry juice.

To read more, go to cranberry juice.

Image courtesy of iStock