The last sentence in the ‘Plain Language summary’ says “Cranberry products (such as tablets or capsules) were also ineffective (although had the same effect as taking antibiotics), possibly due to lack of potency of the ‘active ingredient’.” …What?
How could they have the same effect as antibiotics and be ineffective at the same time? Is this suggesting antibiotics are ineffective against UTIs? Aren’t antibiotics used to treat UTIs to begin with?
If someone could explain any or all of that to me, I would appreciate it greatly. My girlfriend just got a UTI and is very scared. I found this article, but it seems to contradict itself in a few places, to me. I’m not a scientist, so I recognize that I might just not be able to comprehend it, and would love some clarification!
If you got this far, I’m also wondering how these studies could be considered accurate if a lot of the subjects stopped taking the cranberry products?
TL; DR is the first two sections at the top👆
I’ve only skimmed the abstract, but it makes me think antibiotics aren’t effective. I’m basing that on combining two findings that are explicitly stated there: cranberries don’t work, and cranberries are no different to antibiotics. Transitive inference would imply that this means antibiotics don’t work, although I’m surprised the authors haven’t been more explicit about this, given they’ve left it ambiguous and it seems like an obvious question
Edit: there’s slightly more detail at the bottom where it says “Cranberry products were not significantly different to antibiotics for preventing UTIs in three small studies.” It looks like cranberries and antibiotics were only compared in a very limited set of studies, so perhaps take the comparison with a pinch of salt
The study is comparing cranberry products and antibiotics for prevention of UTIs (prophylaxis), not treatment of active infections - antibiotics are definitely effective for treating UTIs, but low-dose preventative antibiotics aren’t that great for prevention and have the downside of potential resistance devlopment.
Ooookay! I think it get it. They’re equally effective for preventing them, but obviously antibiotics are used to treat, not prevent. That makes a ton of sense, thank you