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Can Cranberry Juice Help Women with UTIs?

Am J Clin Nutr; 2016 Jun; Maki, Kaspar, Curtin, et al

Publish date:: June 14, 2016

The number of clinical urinary tract infection (UTI) episodes in women with a recent history of UTI was lowered with the consumption of a cranberry juice beverage. This according to a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial in which 373 women with a history of recent UTI were assigned to consume a 240 mL serving of cranberry beverage/day (n=185) or a placebo (n=188) beverage for 24 weekends. Primary outcome was a reduction in the total number of clinical UTI events per unit of observation time. Researchers found:

• There were 39 diagnosed episodes of clinical UTI in the cranberry group vs 67 episodes in the placebo group (antibiotic use-adjusted incidence rate ratio, 0.61).

• Clinical UTI with pyuria was also significantly reduced (incidence RR=0.63).

• Time to UTI with culture positively did not differ significantly between groups (HR=0.97).

Citation: Maki KC, Kaspar KL, Khoo C, Derrig LH, Schild AL, Gupta K. Consumption of a cranberry juice beverage lowered the number of clinical urinary tract infection episodes in women with a recent history of urinary tract infection. Am J Clin Nutr. 2016;103:1434-42. doi:10.3945/ajcn.116.130542.

Commentary: Recurrent UTIs are common, with a quarter of young women who have a first UTI experiencing a recurrence within 6 months. Sexual intercourse, spermicide/diaphragm use, and previous UTIs are the strongest risk factors for recurrent UTIs. Various strategies have been used to decrease recurrence, ranging from post-coital voiding, cranberry juice, probiotics, post-coital antibiotics, and daily antibiotic prophylaxis.¹ The results of the present study showing that cranberry juice decreases recurrences of UTIs is consistent with the results of a systematic review and meta-analysis that shows an approximate 40% decrease in the incidence of recurrent UTIs with the use of cranberry containing products.² This study lends further evidence to support using daily cranberry juice for prophylaxis of UTIs in women with multiple UTI recurrences, a simple approach that has the advantage of avoiding issues of antimicrobial resistance associated with antibiotic prophylaxis. —Neil Skolnik, MD

1. Hooton TM, Gupta K. Recurrent UTIs in women. UpToDate. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/recurrent-urinary-tract-infection-in-women?source=search_result&search=uti+prophylaxis&selectedTitle=1%7E150.

2. Wang CH, Fang CC, Chen NC, et al. Cranberry-containing products for prevention of urinary tract infections in susceptible populations: a systemic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Arch Intern Med. 2012;172:988–96. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2012.3004.

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