Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comAntibiotics beat cranberries in battle against bladder infections
Seeded on Mon Jul 25, 2011 5:07 PM EDT (msnbc.com)
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Another study by the pharmaceutical industry to sell more drugs?
Cranberries are best fresh with enzymes intact, which is not what the Federal Government allows. Our foods, are pasteurized, frozen, covered in preservatives/waxes or cooked, killing all enzymes making foods impossible to digest.
In the movie Jesus of Nazareth by Franco Zeffereilli there is a scene where Joseph's rabbi is counseling him re the fact that Mary - who has not known man - is with child. Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles.
He quotes, what someone told me is a Jewish proverb. "Women are God's loveliest creatures, but thank you God for making me a man."
Who doesn't get yeast infections nor needs cranberry juice pills or pharmaceuticals. Being a woman ain't easy - not to mention having to put up with we men to boot!
D-Mannose works far better than cranberries. It beats anti-biotics by far. Look for the FDA to ban D-Mannose soon since they are big pharma's attack dog.
I took a single pill home from the Dr's. office for an incredible jock itch. The treatment statement was from a women's hardcover box. Pink in color no less. Yeast infections are real gentlemen. And you will suffer with one someday. It is only a short distance, a foot or two, from infecting your bladder. My friend Chochabula would agree that only Grey Goose can diminish this agony. I have a very hateful friend that will pick on this opinion very hard. But I still think it's funny.
@CAResi: just buy some fresh cranberries. No one is stopping you, not even the 'evil government'.
Yet antibiotics increase risk of caching other illnesses while your medicated.... This is a industry ploy....
wow the anti pharma nuts are out in full force! "Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam" means two things...1) academic does not equal industry, and 2) Amsterdam equals not governed by FDA. Why pay attention to little things like facts clearly presented in the article when you can just as easily make blind accusations instead! After all, that's the popular thing to do these days....
Of course, though, no on involved in this study considered the UTI's that are NOT bacterial in nature. Any infection in any part of the body can be caused by bacteria, by a virus, by a parasite or by a fungal agent, and antibiotics can only help with those with a bacterial cause. In fact, the over-use of antibiotics can and does pave the road for fungal infections, including fungal UTI's. In fact, most stubborn UTI's are actually fungal in origin.
Cranberries, as well as a number of other natural remedies, are powerful antibiotics anti-virals, anti-fungals and anti-parasitics. They tend to kill pathogens by burning them, which is referred to as a mechanical method, and no organism can evolve to withstand a mechanical method of destruction.
However, Dr Schimf is right about one thing - cranberries or cranberry juice (not the most popular, which is a cocktail of cranberry and other juices, but pure cranberry juice) is an excellent adjunctive therapy to the standard ones, and can bring a relatively quick diminution of symptoms.
Yeast can be seen under the microscope if the doctor orders a microscopic exam of the urine not just the chemical one (dipstick). Make sure if you have a problem to ask your doctor to order a microscopic exam be done on your urine, not just a dipstick.
In my years of working in a lab, I never saw yeast that was not accompanied by bacteria. The two go hand in hand.
PURE CRANBERRIES ONLY. Nothing with sugar. Sugar is food to yeast. In fact, it THRIVES on yeast.
LES, sugar is only going to be in your urine if you have diabetes and are not under control. Just eating sugar doesn't cause it show up in your urine. There is plenty of sugar naturally present in the mucus of the urethra and vagina. the yeast tend to overgrow if antibiotics wipe out the normal bacteria present while treating the abnormal ones causing the infection.
I believe that LES just meant to drink cranberry juice without sugar or other additives. It is true that sugar does feed yeast infections. You can also be diabetic and not have sugar present in your urine.
Antibiotics? What FDA nonsense. Antibiotics are needed for extreme UIT's. But the overuse of antibiotics kills necessary bacteria. And when that happens, candida albicans reproduce like crazy makingPMS go to outrageous extremes. Avoid antibiotics when cranberry juice can work.
Unfortunately, I have MS and am prone to chronic UTI's. Antiobiotics are the ONLY course of treatment for me. Cranberries DO NOT work. The best remedy is to drink a ton of water everyday and pee all the time -- which is sometimes not convenient!
I almost died 4 years ago from a kidney infection that started as a simple UTI. I was SEPTIC. Women should NOT depend on cranberries to keep them healthy!
And I'll feel for you when the bacteria causing your UTI's becomes resistant to the antibiotics, but not as much as you'll feel it. At least it's a UTI and not the clap as it was just announced that the last line of antibiotic that was still effective against the bigger, badder gonorrhea no longer is. If that's not evolution I don't know what is.
The problem with studies like this is of course that they must base their results on the assumption that X number of women will get Y number of UTIs.....and I don't see any distinction between bladder infections and true kidney infections......over a certain period. This means that there is a certain error margin built in before any of the data is evaluated and can lead to false assumptions.
While I don't disagree that antibiotics may well be more effective in the treatment of urinary tract infections, I have to draw the line at giving out antibiotics prophylactically to prevent infection rather than using them to appropriately treat an active infection.
That is a scenario for disaster and it will not take long for it to indeed evolve into a true disaster.
As someone who suffered with back-to-back UTI's for several years, I was happy that I was finally prescribed antibiotics prophylactically. The urologist (not the first I'd consulted) said I was one of the "lucky" minority of women who got UTIs after intercourse. One pill just afterward has saved me from many infections. Cranberry juice and everything else was a complete failure. And, unlike the article states, there is no way that a woman with half a brain could confuse a bladder infection with a vaginal infection. So you can "draw the line" all you want to but I am thankful for the antibiotics as a preventive measure.
I used to have reoccurring UTI's as well. I suffered with them for years and the antibiotics would barely slow the infections down. I spent hundreds of dollars on prescriptions and office visits and lost time at work. Oddly enough it was a doctor that suggested I try drinking cranberry juice and urinating immediately following intercourse. The combination of the two worked wonders. That was almost 25 years ago and I've only had to go a doctor for a UTI once since then.
I too had a doctor give me an antibiotic and prescribe me cranberry juice and cranberry health-aid pills to take through the course of the antibiotic. I would also suggest taking acidophilous daily-promotes healthy bacteria that protect from yeast infections and the like. The female body is a pretty smart thing...we want to stay and cuddle after sex but you have that urge to pee? It's your body telling you that you need to purge any bacteria you might have picked up in the process of intercourse, whether it be mild or bad. Don't be ashamed or embarrassed to excuse yourselves, ladies-it's natural. Women have been doing it for hundreds of years and only now through studying it do we know why.
Bladder infections can be stubborn to get rid of and require multiple prescriptions for antibiotics. You should never expect just one antibiotic to work.
I seem to disagree with this news that the cranberry capsule is not as good as an as the drug does better. Of course not because through manufacturing it loses it power. The juice also is very good in treating Gout which is in relationship with the kidney's and bladder uric content.
Should always have a bottle of the cranberry juice at your need to use when ever. Not only is it good for that but a day of drinking a whole bottle of it will cleanse out your system.
Thanks for the tip on gout. I have been taking a Montmorency cherry extract daily for gout, which is proving extreemely effective, but I will try cranberry juice as well. It can't hurt and I drink a lot of fruit juice anyway.
A whole bottle a day? Aside from breaking the bank for that one, you simply can't do it if you're a diabetic, and diabetics are always prone to candida infections.
And they taste good too. The cranberrys that is.
The medical and pharmaceutical industries absolutely hate that they lose market share to a berry. They hate it even more that actual research shows that the berries work.
and yet another blind ignorant comment from someone who clearly did not read the article! Please go back and re-read the very first sentence. Here I'll post it for you "When it comes to preventing recurrent bladder infections, cranberry capsules do not work as well as daily antibiotics, a new study show" So according to you, what "actual research shows that the berries work"? Clearly not the research being discussed herein.
Hummm....sounds like Ms. Linda Carroll has taken a sheet of facts right from the pharmaceutical company's propaganda machine.... her story doesn't even look at the alternatives to avoiding (much less treating) infections caused by poor diet and lack of a general healthy lifestyle. Antibiotics are a contributor to our bodies developing more and more infections...and the doctor's quoted only know as much as the pharm reps who come in and sell them (with compensation) on the industry's newest wonder drugs. Our technology may appear to be safe but has consequences. Take, for example, the winter wheat grown in Eastern Oregon, that we humans consume. It was the cause of more than 250 elk dieing of starvation last winter --- with their bellies full of winter wheat!! Yep, and they can't process these new wonder crops, any better than we humans can.
I noticed an anti-supplement, pro-drug bias to msnbc news coverage about five years ago.
Winter wheat is nothing new. It's actually an old version of wheat, planted in the fall, and then harvested in the late spring. It's got much higher levels of protein (gluten), and is used as bread flour. It's not likely, therefore, that the elk died because of the wheat.
Facts would be a nice idea.
Should have used pure cranberry juice for the study. What kind of morons conduct these studies? Pharma nitwits.
please READ the article
Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam <---emphasis on ACADEMIC (not pharma industry), emphasis on AMSTERDAM (not under FDA or any American agency/organization/company jurisdiction)
antibiotics kill the bacteria, but also kill all the bacteria - body defenses of beneficial bacteria as well. i know of someone who several times took antibiotics to kill the uti, and the day after the prescription ended, the uti would return... always. then you have to take probiotics etc to restore the beneficial defenders. a better option, or in conjunction with cranberry pills, is d-mannose. this supplement( a simple and natural sugar) prevents the bad bacteria, usually e-coli, from adhering to the bladder walls and multiplying. safe and effective, and without the expense and negative side-effects of antibiotics, to which you will eventually become resistent to and left vulnerable in a crisis situation. can see wikipedia reference for d-mannose for scientific explanation of efficacy.
Pomegranate juice, works best for me.
I was on maintenance antibiotics for 4 years. Then I had an operation and got really sick and kept on being consistently sick and needing antibiotics for years and years. I got all kinds of infections. I got my first antibiotic resistant infection in my early 20s, the second antibiotic worked, but after that I decided not to take anymore antibiotics. Then I got really sick it was scary, but drinking grapefruit and cranberry juice made it go away.
That's exactly why I don't think routine prophylactic antibiotics are a good idea. Antibiotics have "evolved" somuch that reading the literatur on them is like reading the literature on the nitial chemotherapeutic agents, and I find tht a bit scary since these are routinely prescribed every day.
Clearly, if you suffer, and suffer is not a word I use lightly, from more or less continuous infections then continuous antibiotics are appropriate. The problem is that after a while you develop superbugs, and there's no antibiotic that hits them well.
Of, for crying out loud, everyone knows that d-mannose is BEST for bladder infections!!!!!
D-MANNOSE beats antibiotics for bladder infections, hands down.
mannose only works for e.coli infections, it is a simple sugar that can actually be metabolized (i.e. it's the food) by other organisms including yeasts. I bet everyone on here promoting mannose doesn't even know what the "d" means! take an organic class, a microbiology class, an immunology class, THEN you can give advice on how to treat an infection.
My 8 year old daughter has had to deal with multiple UTIs over the last several years because of a "back flush" problem. The pediatric Urologist did say she will grow out of it,thank goodness. We started her over a year ago on a daily cranberry chew since she wasnt ready to swallow pills,and they are wonderfully effective! We will move her to pills soon now that she can swallow them, as they are quite a bit cheaper. I would hesitate to start her on an antibiotic regimen on a regular basis unless what we were doing totally stopped working.
The headline of this article is grossly misleading. The study compared cranberry capsules to antibiotics, which is hardly the same as comparing antibiotics to cranberries.
My Mother has taken two glasses of 100% Pure Cranberry juice, not blended, not 10% juice and shes had very few reoccuring infections, shes had surgery and had the antibiotic but since using the Cranberry 100% Juice shes hadf no issues or doctor visits.
Does your mother have a Permanent Pucker? Pure 100% cranberry juice, while it is the healthiest, is incredibly tart, is it not?
Is she drinking juice that is 100% CRANBERRY juice or just 100% juice with a little cranberry juice thrown in. Read the label. Most of the cranberry juices that are sold in the stores are made with apple and white grape juice. They may be 100% juice, but they aren't 100% cranberry juice.
Aw shaddup. I've no health insurance, and was laid off a year ago. So, I self-diagnose and self- treat.
You're probably a lot safer for it.
UTI's respond extremely well to homeopathy. Although in a perfect world, each person would receive an individualized prescription, the 6x potency of Nat Mur taken 4 times a day works for most women, stopping the UTI within 24 hours.
And for those of you who will feel the need to tell me homeopathy is quackery, don't even bother because I won't answer. If you're too lazy and/or brainwashed to research the more than 150 gold-standard studies that include infants and animals, don't expect me to educate you. Just keep sucking down the toxic drugs you deserve.
Meebs, you are Free to do whatever you want to yourself, just don't turn around and file a lawsuit when you claim that someone else is responsible for the consequences!
kc --
Rah, Rah, Rah! I could not have said it better myself. Thank you! The best kind of study/research, which costs nothing, is for each individual to determine what works best for him or herself, not what works for 45% of the idiotic survey respondents with a 10% margin of error! Lies, Damn Lies & Statistics!
Cranberry is primary measures. ABT is secondary measures, and it is more expensive than cranberry. If the primary measures is well carried out, there is no need to have expensive secondary measures.
Absolutely, if you treat your UTI immediately as soon as you feel the first symptoms it will clear very quickly. When I start getting one I drink lots of water and lots of cranberry juice, and I honestly have found any pure juice with cranberry works but the pure cranberry works much faster.
Remind us again some day, MSNBC, how great "daily antibiotics" are after people start dropping dead from overgrowth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. You're pimping for Big Pharma. Why should we trust anything that you report?
cranberry CAPSULES didn't work. Try eating more than a capsules-worth of REAL cranberries maybe. or cranberry JUICE. what a weak study.
amazing insight into the world of everything we already know
What about eating a dozen cherries to stop gout. Big pharmas don't want that one out their either. They would rather have you go on a drug that has many side effects, including gout flare-ups.
I don't think most people have a problem bad enough that regular cranberry tablets, pure cranberry juice (No sugar girls and guys! Makes it worse.) plenty of water and voiding after intercourse won't fix if you tend to get them frequently. I used to get them pretty constantly through my late teenage years until about now, and if I got lax in taking care of it they'd come back and I'd have to treat with antibiotics. But as a preventative? It's foolish.
If you aren't feeling well load up on the cranberry, drink water until you think you'll burst and head to the doctor. It is hard to stop one once started. And pick up AZO tablets for UTI relief. It works wonders until I can get to the doctor.
For whatever reason I don't seem to get them anymore. I would have said it was my recent change in diet, but they stopped even before that. Maybe I just grew out of it.
I have been doing research on
cranberries and UTI prevention for 18 years at Rutgers University. There are
many positive clinical and lab studies showing that cranberries can be a viable
preventative. I think the title of this article is unfortunate, because it puts
the emphasis on cranberry instead of where it really belongs....The only real
conclusion that is important from this study is that we should NOT be using
low-dose antibiotics for UTI prevention because of the massive antibiotic
resistance problems this causes. In fact, in the article, the authors actually
say that the cranberry did have some positive effect and that they WOULD
recommend it as an alternative to the antibiotics. Cranberry use did not cause any antibiotic resistance. Unlike
antibiotics, cranberry does not kill bacteria. The fruit contains compounds
that prevent the pathogenic bacteria from sticking to the bladder wall, which
is the initial step in the infection process. Interrupting the adhesion of
bacteria prevents it from growing and causing a UTI. Different forms of cranberry
(juice, dried and fresh fruit, sauce and powders) all have this anti-adhesion
activity. Cranberry has not only been shown clinically to prevent UTI, but it
also has a wide range of other health benefits, including reducing certain risk
factors for heart disease.
For more information on cranberries and their health benefits, go to:
New motto of the FDA....
A patient cured is a customer lost.
Pay close attention here and think about the debt fiasco.
You can not control a healthy intelligent population.
And if you keep picking the better of 2 evils eventually all you have is evil.