SHOULD WOMEN DRINK CRANBERRY JUICE TO PREVENT URINARY TRACT INFECTIONS?
(April 2002) Urinary tract infections are extremely common among women. Forty to fifty percent of women will experience at least one urinary tract infection during their lifetimes. In any given year, five million women in the United States will be given antibiotics for a urinary tract infection at a cost of well over $1 billion. One-third of women who develop a urinary tract infection will have a recurrence in the following year. In June 2001, a group of Finnish investigators reported the results of a study in which 50 of 100 women who experienced a urinary tract infection were given a commercially available cranberry-lingonberry juice daily for six months. The other fifty women were given nothing. At the end of six months, eighteen of the fifty women (36 percent) who served as controls developed a new urinary tract infection as compared to eight of fifty (16 percent) in the cranberry juice group. At the end of one year, 26 percent of the cranberry juice group developed another urinary
