Cranberry juice, and hold the alcohol

Cranberry juice isn’t just a favorite mixer for vodka. Many women believe it also offers a health benefit or two.

So: Can drinking cranberry juice help to prevent or cure urinary tract infections?

The short answer: Prevent, yes, cure, no.

Dr. Rebecca Herrero, an obstetrician/gynecologist with Women’s Health Associates of Southern Nevada, says the notion that cranberry juice can cure urinary tract infections seems to be a common one among women.

“I can’t tell you how many women come in … and say, ‘I’ve been drinking a lot of cranberry juice and water and it doesn’t seem to go away.’ I’d say at least 75 percent tell me that it didn’t go away, so it’s a very common myth out there.”

Urinary tract infections may include infections of the kidneys, bladder, urethra or ureters. But, when laymen talk about urinary tract infections, Herrero says, “they’re almost always talking about a bladder infection.”

Symptoms of a urinary tract infection may include abdominal pain, a burning sensation with urination and feeling the urge to urinate but passing only small amounts of urine.

Drinking a glass of cranberry juice daily may help to prevent urinary tract infections. The reason, Herrero says, is that cranberries contain tannins that, it is believed, prevent bacteria — particularly one kind of bacteria, E. coli, the most common bacteria in urinary tract infections — from sticking to the wall of the bladder.

“So, by not allowing bacteria to stick to the wall of the bladder, it prevents infection,” she says.

However, she said, “if you already have an infection in your bladder, it’s not going to treat your bladder infection.”

Nonetheless, if women — men can have urinary tract infections, too, but typically are less prone to having them — suffer frequent urinary tract infections, they might wish to drink a glass of cranberry juice daily, Herrero says.

Discuss it with your doctor, and definitely see your doctor if symptoms last longer than a day.

“Certainly, if you have it more than one day, you need to seek medical care,” Herrero says. “You don’t need to see a specialist. Any primary care physician can handle urinary tract infections.”

A course of antibiotics is the standard treatment for urinary tract infections. Also, women whose bouts of urinary tract infection seem to be associated with sexual activity might wish to talk with their doctors about using an antibiotic as a preventive.

In that case, “every time they have sex, they take one (antibiotic) pill,” she said. “They don’t take the whole course.”

The use of cranberry tablets or cranberry juice also is an option, Herrero says, and pregnant women often prefer these “because it’s a little more natural.”