Everyone's either heard or been told by their family or friends that drinking cranberry juice
can prevent UTIs or bladder infections. But what's the real deal? Do cranberries have some miracle
properties that actually ward off bacteria? I'm Dr. Rena Malik, urologist and pelvic surgeon,
and today I'm going to break down the facts about cranberries and do they actually prevent UTIs
and make sure you stick around till the end because I'm going to share my
secret for patients who have those recurring bladder infections that just won't go away!
So let's start off with the basics, bladder infections or urinary tract infections are
caused by bacteria in the bladder and they can present with symptoms that include dysuria or
pain when you urinate sometimes people call it like a burning or a pins and needles type of pain
super pubic pain or pain in the lower abdomen urgency the feeling that you've gotta go gotta
go to the bathroom and you just can't hold off and frequency going to the bathroom more
often than usual and why do these infections even happen well there's a number of different reasons
first women have a shorter urethral length or p tube length than men it's usually about three
centimeters long which means that bacteria can get in to the bladder much more easily in women
than in men bladder infections or utis can also be caused by a number of anatomic or functional
problems that can be because there's a problem with the kidney the ureters or tubes that drain
the kidneys or the bladder itself where somewhere there might be a blockage and urine can't get out
or the bladder doesn't squeeze well and the urine can't get out that urine acts as food for bacteria
to then multiply in the bladder and create more bladder infections but sometimes frankly we don't
know what causes the uti we do know there are some triggers like sex constipation or travel
that can proceed or lead to a uti but don't directly cause the infection itself but guess
what doesn't cause utis now listen up this is big it is not caused by being dirty or getting it from
your partner during sex yes you heard me correctly you cannot get a urinary transmitted infection as
a sexually transmitted disease from your partner it's not because you're not cleaning yourself
enough or well enough so please if someone tells you that you need to clean better they're probably
wrong the large majority of my patients who have bladder infections are extremely clean in fact
they are more clean than my other patients if you fall into the category of suffering from recurrent
urinary tract infections which we define as having three or more infections in the last year
or two or more in the last six months please see your primary care doctor to make sure
you do not have an anatomic or functional reason for these urinary tract infections
but if you don't have a problem can cranberries really help prevent bladder infections how did
this even come about why would cranberries prevent recurrent urinary tract infections well we know
that cranberries have an active ingredient inside them called pro anthocyanins or pacs
and these pacs work by binding to the bacteria and preventing them or inhibiting them from binding to
the bladder wall so that you just pee them out in your urine rather than them getting stuck to the
wall and causing those bladder infection symptoms so that's all great but how much cranberry do you
really need to take and in what form do you need to eat the cranberries drink the juice or take a
capsule there's a couple things you need to think about when you're taking cranberry one is the
amount of pacs so there was a study that looked at the different amounts 18 milligrams 36 milligrams
and 72 milligrams and what they found was that the 36 milligram dose and the 72 milligram dose
actually caused anti-adhesion or reduced the stickiness of the bacteria significantly more than
the 18 milligram dose so you want to look for at least a 36 milligram dose of pro anthocyanins in
your cranberry the next important thing to look at is are you getting the most soluble form of pacs
now what do I mean by soluble the soluble forms of pacs are the ones that your body actually absorbs
and can work to bind to those bacteria and prevent them from sticking to the bladder wall and this is
most commonly found in the cranberry juice extract or the cranberry juice powder but what about the
insoluble form well the insoluble form is the form that the body can't use and it's made
up mostly of cranberry pumice or everything except for the concentrated juice the skins the stems and
the flesh of the berry itself which a lot of the supplements refer to as whole cranberry product
very recently a study was done comparing two of these products one of the products had the
concentrated juice extract and that's called giga crayon and the other product was the
typical over-the-counter cranberry capsules that you find and that was made with pac ran
and what they found was that the giga crane cranberry juice extract or the products made
of this very strong cranberry juice extract had significantly higher anti-adhesion properties
which meant that they were less sticky the bacteria were less sticky to the bladder wall
compared to the other products that are often referred to as whole berry products so I know
everywhere you look around the market you want to try these whole berry products these holy natural
ingredients but in this case particularly for urinary tract infections the whole berry products
are not going to work as well okay fine so we find this 36 milligram soluble cranberry does
it actually work so they did a review of all the studies looking at different forms of cranberry
and what they found was that a soluble supplement with 36 milligrams of pacs was as effective as
taking a low dose of antibiotic every single day so for me as a urologist this is a no-brainer
if I can give my patients something that has virtually no side effects and they will help
prevent their bladder infections of course I'm going to offer it so where can you find
this soluble 36 milligram pac can you find it in the common over-the-counter cranberry juices
nope in the hundred percent cranberry juice nope in the over-the-counter cranberry supplements
nope so where can you get this supplement that actually works well it's time to share my little
secret for all my patients who are suffering from bladder infections that just won't go away I
always recommend allura in fact i've been recommending allura as a practicing urologist
since day one it works so well for so many of my patients that I couldn't resist partnering with
them today to get you this amazing content if you're suffering from recurrent utis and
you've been evaluated by a urologist to make sure there's no anatomic or functional problem
then allura is the supplement for you all you need to do is take one capsule a day and rest
assured that you're taking the best supplement on the market in fact the reason I love allura
is they do third party testing at the time of manufacturing and then test their finished goods
quarterly to make sure that they're getting the highest anti-adhesion properties in each and every
capsule and allure is one of the only supplements on the market made from a hundred percent
cranberry juice extract made entirely of soluble pacs not like the other products on the market
that are made of insoluble pacs that just bind to themselves rather than the bacteria if you want to
try a laura out today make sure you check out the comment code in the description and please comment
below if you have any questions as always remember to take care of yourself because you're worth it