What's the use of cranberry juice?

摘要

Urinary tract infections are common. About one- quarter of women will have one at some time in their lives, and the incidence increases with age. Those elderly people who live in residential or nursing homes are at particularly high risk [1,2]. Antibiotics are of proven benefit for the prevention and treat- ment of urinary infections [3,4], but are not always effective, and can cause side effects such as nausea, diarrhoea and candidal infections. Whilst most asymp- tomatic bacteriuria in elderly people can safely be left untreated, in some patients recurrent symptomatic infections occur which can be distressing and poten- tially life-threatening.