Is Cranberry Juice A Natural Cure For Cystitis?

"Cure"... cure is a bit of a strong word.

Cranberry juice does offer a few possible benefits, though.

1) It is high in acids that literally make the pH in the urinary tract uncomfortable for the bugs causing the cystitis. So it inhibits their growth that way. Taking vitamin C pills or a chemist's acidic remedy may be more effective though.

2) The bug that most commonly causes cystitis is E. Coli. Cranberry juice contains a lot of certain chemicals, called condensed tannins or proanthocyanidins. When these reach the bladder and urinary tract they literally make it difficult for the E.Coli (or other infecting bacteria) to stick to the walls of the bladder/ tract. So helps them get flushed out with your urine.

3) Drinking any liquid makes you more likely to urinate; and that helps flush the bad bacteria away, too.

It's hard to find cranberry juice, commercially, at high concentrations, though. Some say that anything less than 50% isn't good enough to help with cystitis; the highest I've found is in Lidl and is only about 35%.

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