CRANBERRIES
Cranberries and
turkeys go very well together, but so do cranberries and people. And
we're not talking about cannibalism, we're talking about the health
of the urinary tract. Our story starts way back in the 1920's when
it was noticed that cranberry juice made the urine very acidic. And
E. coli bacteria, which very often caused infection of the urinary
tract were thought to be labile to acid and therefore the idea was
drink cranberry juice - reduce urinary tract infections. Many ladies
tried it and sang the praises of the cranberries. However, it turns
out that it really has nothing to do with the acidity.
Cranberry juice
does not make the urine acidic enough to kill the E. coli bacteria.
But there is perhaps an even more interesting mechanism of action.
This was unraveled after 1994 . Harvard researchers showed that indeed
you could reduce the incidence of urinary tract infections in people.
They looked at some elderly ladies who drank a great deal of cranberry
juice on a regular basis and noted a decreased incidence of urinary
tract infection. What was doing this? Well, it turns out that bacteria
stick to the lining of the urinary tract using molecules called adhesins.
And cranberries contain proanthocyanidins. These are molecules which
can interfere with the receptor sites that bacteria use to stick to
the lining of the urinary tract.
So now we have
an explanation. But we also have a problem. The problem is that cranberry
juice is very very sour, it's virtually undrinkable so we have to
add sugar to it to make it palatable. Cranberry cocktail is just diluted
cranberry juice with sugar added. But what if you don't want all that
sugar? Well, today we can have cranberry pills. Just de-hydrated cranberry
juice, and some people suggest that they've been helped by that as
well. And interestingly enough cranberries may do more than just prevent
urinary tract infections. A study at the university of Western Ontario
showed that it can have an anti -cancer effect, at least in rodents.
The test animals were treated with cranberry juice or cranberry extract
and then were injected with human breast cancer cells in their mammary
glands. And it turns out that the animals that were pre-treated with
the cranberry in its various forms took longer to develop tumors.
That's pretty interesting.
So in the future
on Thanksgiving Day we may in fact be giving thanks for cranberries.
