Preventing UTI With Natural Healthy Diet, Cranberry and Natural Juices
Recurrent UTIs represent very frustrating experiences for women. More than 50% of this category suffer at least once in a lifetime a urinary tract infection that them urgency to urinate, fever, back and abdominal pain. But these infections can be prevented by an appropriate diet, rich in berry juice and yoghurts, according to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
A study performed on 324 women around 31- from which 139 had e urinary tract infection (and represented the "cases") and 185 had no such record ("the controls") - followed the differences between their answers to the same questionnaires.
Berry juice and yoghurt proved themselves very effective in the presentation of UTIs, because of their content of "probiotic" bacteria and flavonols that annihilate the effects of the coliform bacteria.
Natural juices and yoghurts that have no added sugar content should enter your alimentary habits, because they are not only delicious, but also helpful.
Cranberry and its effects against bacteria
The symptoms are clear and hard to ignore. In the United States UTIs are among the most frequent diseases. The affection is difficult to bear and the treatment - very expensive: 30 dollars for medication and 40 dollars for a visit to a specialist.
The main treatment is represented by antibiotics, but some bacteria resistant to it, so alternative medication becomes more and more necessary. One such solution is considered to be cranberry.
In the past (the last half of the 17'th century) the Germans were the first to study the effect of cranberry on UTIs and discovered that it acidifies the urine and destroys some bacteria, by the hipperic acid.
Around 1960, in absence of clear evidence of its efficiency in the eradication of infections, cranberry lost credibility. Modern researchers are, although, trying nowadays to restore it to its proper place.
UTIs are of three types. The first type, cystitis affects first the urinary bladder and may touch the kidneys, degenerating into pyelonephritis - the second type. The effects of cranberry on cystitis and pyelonephritis are currently being studied. The third type, Urethritis cannot be treated by means of cranberry extracts.
Escherichia coli is usually helpful for the digestive system, because it helps the large intestine to eliminate feces. But it also causes most UTI, because, once it enters the urethra, it attaches to bladder cells and cause infections, by destroying certain capillaries. This is where the blood in the urine comes from. It is also possible for E-coli to get to the kidneys and cause pyelonephritis.
Cranberry produces a substance similarly to Taunus-Horsfall glyco-protein, which prevents E-coli from attaching to the bladder cells.
A 1994 Harvard study using 153 elderly women that had various UTIs proved cranberry to have a possible effect on their prevention. The same results were obtained by Weber state, which used capsules containing cranberry extract.
There are natural barriers against UTI's. Men are unlikely to have one, but women - although their perineum should prevent the bacteria to enter the urethra - are very exposed. The perineum can be damaged by tight clothes, sexual contacts, baths or the lack of hygiene. In case of girls and female children, more than one UTI impose x-ray tests to look for possible urinary tract problems. In case of boys, the tests are performed right after the first infection. Those women are also predisposed to chronic and recurrent UTI.
For some patients, one dose of antibiotic is enough to kill the bacteria. In combination to cranberry extract capsules two times a day for more than one month; these antibiotics protect the bladder from a new infection. The antibiotic may sometimes be replaced by thyme, gold seal or queen of the meadow.
In case of recurrent infections, the same treatment is given, but the time in which cranberry capsules are used increases to 3 months, or even for the rest of the life.
Cranberry is also recommended as juice (2-3 glasses a day), which is also available in unsweetened form for diabetics.
It is very effective in the prevention of urinary tract infections. In case a person doesn't like its taste, the juice can be replaced by concentrated capsules.
This natural medicine had also good results with prostates or neurological abnormalities. Cranberry helps to urinate and prevents also the infections generated by the use of catheters. It is a miracle of nature.