Cranberry Capsules More Effective in Lowering UTI Risk Than Juice

You may have heard that drinking a large glass of cranberry juice can effectively 'treat' a bladder infection, but is this remedy more fact or fiction?

A UTI is an infection in any part of the urinary system, kidneys, bladder or urethra. They are more common in women and affect more than 3 million Americans per year. Many in the population will turn to sipping on a cranberry juice cocktail to alleviate their symptoms, but, according to a Texas A&M Health Science Center urologist, drinking cranberry juice to treat a UTI is little more than an old wives' tale.

"Cranberry juice, especially the juice concentrates you find at the grocery store, will not treat a UTI or bladder infection," said Timothy Boone, M.D., Ph.D., vice dean of the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine Houston campus and chairman of the department of urology for Houston Methodist Hospital. "It can offer more hydration and possibly wash bacteria from your body more effectively, but the active ingredient in cranberry is long-gone by the time it reaches your bladder."

With that said, the active ingredient in cranberry (A-type proanthocyanidins or PACs) can block the adhesion of bacteria to the wall of the bladder. "For a UTI to occur, bacteria must adhere to and invade the lining of the bladder," Boone said. "PACs interfere with the bacteria's ability to bind to the wall of the bladder and create an infection."

Unfortunately, PACs aren't present in cranberry juice at all—only in cranberry capsules. "It takes an extremely large concentration of cranberry to prevent bacterial adhesion," Boone added. "This amount of concentration is not found in the juices we drink. There's a possibility it was stronger back in our grandparents' day, but definitely not in modern times."

A study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology did conclude that taking cranberry capsules lowered the risk of UTIs by 50 percent in women who had a catheter in place while undergoing gynecological surgery. "In this study, they took the cranberry itself and put it in a capsule—the equivalence of drinking 28 ounces of cranberry juice. As you can see, it takes a large amount of pure cranberry to prevent an infection," Boone said.

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