UTIs: SOGC approves cranberry-lingonberry juice

[Todd Gastaldo]

UTIs: SOGC APPROVES CRANBERRY-LINGONBERRY JUICE

"Women experiencing recurrent urinary tract infections should be instructed
that consumption of pure cranberry-lingonberry juice, rather than cranberry
drink, will decrease their risk of urinary tract
infections...Validation...reviewed by the joint committee of Clinical
Practice Gynaecology and Urogynaecology and approved by the Executive and
Council of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada
[SOGC]."
--Johnston et al.^^^ J Obstet Gynaecol Can. 2004 May;26(5):503-8.

^^^Johnston SL, Farrell SA, Bouchard C, Farrell SA, Beckerson LA, Comeau M,
Johnston SL, Lefebvre G, Papaioannou A.



Sadly, SOGC has also approved semisitting delivery (closing the birth canal
up to 30%)...


I warned the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC)
that semisitting closes the birth canal...

But SOGC still apparently approves the following grisly bald lie:

"The traditional lithotomy position commonly used
in obstetric units can certainly be modified to obtain a
semi-sitting posture and hence achieve the benefit
derived from the upright position..."
SOGC CLINICAL PRACTICE GUIDELINES
POLICY STATEMENT No. 71, December 1998:53
http://www.sogc.org/SOGCnet/sogc_docs/common/guide/pdfs/healthybegeng.pdf

SOGC says (same document - p. 54):

"[T]he traditional lithotomy
position...should...be reserved for cases of operative delivery
[vacuum/forceps]."

Traditional lithotomy - like semi-sitting/semi-recumbency -
CLOSES THE BIRTH CANAL!

WHY are we letting OBs and CNMwives pull (or chemically push with
oxytocin!) - with the birth canal closed up to 30%?!

For further details...

See: I ain't no Semmelweis, but...
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/chiro-list/message/2591



Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

Todd

Dr. Gastaldo

[Shena Delian O'Brien]

Todd Gastaldo wrote:

> UTIs: SOGC APPROVES CRANBERRY-LINGONBERRY JUICE
>
> "Women experiencing recurrent urinary tract infections should be instructed
> that consumption of pure cranberry-lingonberry juice, rather than cranberry
> drink, will decrease their risk of urinary tract
> infections...Validation...reviewed by the joint committee of Clinical
> Practice Gynaecology and Urogynaecology and approved by the Executive and
> Council of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada
> [SOGC]."
> --Johnston et al.^^^ J Obstet Gynaecol Can. 2004 May;26(5):503-8.
>
> ^^^Johnston SL, Farrell SA, Bouchard C, Farrell SA, Beckerson LA, Comeau M,
> Johnston SL, Lefebvre G, Papaioannou A.

Lingonberries are great. I love them! They are much more potent in the
anti-cancer and anti-bacterial properties than cranberries, plus they
taste yummier.

Lingonberry preserves are great on everything.

Eating and drinking lingonberries or cranberries can keep your teeth as
well as your bladder free of bacteria.

[Kim E.]

In article >,
says...
> Lingonberries are great. I love them! They are much more potent in the
> anti-cancer and anti-bacterial properties than cranberries, plus they
> taste yummier.
>
> Lingonberry preserves are great on everything.
>
> Eating and drinking lingonberries or cranberries can keep your teeth as
> well as your bladder free of bacteria.

One time I got UTI symptoms on the weekend and couldn't see the Dr til
monday - so I drank literally gallons of cranberry juice and water, and
by the time of my dr appt i had no UTI. I asked the Dr if he believed
that cranberry juice could cure UTI's and he snickered dismissively and
said, "Well, you'd have to drink gallons of it to do anything."

i have never heard of lingonberries, i'll have to look those up!

-kim

[Sarah Vaughan]

In message >, Kim E.
> writes
>One time I got UTI symptoms on the weekend and couldn't see the Dr til
>monday - so I drank literally gallons of cranberry juice and water, and
>by the time of my dr appt i had no UTI. I asked the Dr if he believed
>that cranberry juice could cure UTI's and he snickered dismissively and
>said, "Well, you'd have to drink gallons of it to do anything."

There isn't any real evidence that it can cure UTIs - the evidence is
that drinking it daily (or, to be more exact, drinking a mixture of
cranberry and lingonberry juice) can help prevent them.

What probably did the trick, in your case, was the sheer volume of fluid
you were drinking, which was exactly the right thing to do - drinking
that much and weeing it all out just flushes the germs out of your
system and can often avoid the need for antibiotics altogether. I would
recommend this DIY technique to almost anyone with a UTI, even if there
isn't a delay in seeing the doctor, as it's worth avoiding antibiotics
if you can (can't get side-effects from a medication you don't take,
plus the fewer antibiotics people take the fewer problems we'll get with
bacterial resistance). Obviously, exceptions would be people who have a
history of getting kidney infections with a UTI or becoming very unwell,
who might find it worth treating with antibiotics at an early stage
rather than waiting for things to worsen.


All the best,

Sarah

--
"I once requested an urgent admission for a homeopath who had become depressed
and taken a massive underdose" - Phil Peverley

[David Rind]

Sarah Vaughan wrote:
> In message >, Kim E.
> > writes
>
>> One time I got UTI symptoms on the weekend and couldn't see the Dr til
>> monday - so I drank literally gallons of cranberry juice and water,
>> and by the time of my dr appt i had no UTI. I asked the Dr if he
>> believed that cranberry juice could cure UTI's and he snickered
>> dismissively and said, "Well, you'd have to drink gallons of it to do
>> anything."
>
>
> There isn't any real evidence that it can cure UTIs - the evidence is
> that drinking it daily (or, to be more exact, drinking a mixture of
> cranberry and lingonberry juice) can help prevent them.

I think this falls under the absence of evidence isn't evidence
of absence axiom.

I don't know of any clinical trials that have looked at whether
cranberry juice can cure a UTI, since we generally have safe,
rapidly effective treatments for UTI. As such, there isn't much
interest in performing a study like this.

But cranberry juice does seem to affect bacterial adherence, and
is effective in preventing recurrence of UTIs, so it's not hard
to imagine it might cure UTIs some percentage of the the time.

--
David Rind

[Shena Delian O'Brien]

Sarah Vaughan wrote:

> There isn't any real evidence that it can cure UTIs - the evidence is
> that drinking it daily (or, to be more exact, drinking a mixture of
> cranberry and lingonberry juice) can help prevent them.
>

What the evidence suggests it does do, however, is coat the sides of
your bladder (and indeed your mouth, and anywhere it touches along the
way) with a slippery substance which makes the bacteria unable to
attach. So they flush out of your system. The combination of cranberry
or lingonberries with lots of fluids could reduce the bacterial count in
your bladder quite a bit.

[Amy]

What is a lingonberry, and what does it look like? Does it have other names?
I've never heard of them.

"Shena Delian O'Brien" > wrote in message
...
> Todd Gastaldo wrote:
>
> > UTIs: SOGC APPROVES CRANBERRY-LINGONBERRY JUICE
> >
> > "Women experiencing recurrent urinary tract infections should be
instructed
> > that consumption of pure cranberry-lingonberry juice, rather than
cranberry
> > drink, will decrease their risk of urinary tract
> > infections...Validation...reviewed by the joint committee of Clinical
> > Practice Gynaecology and Urogynaecology and approved by the Executive
and
> > Council of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada
> > [SOGC]."
> > --Johnston et al.^^^ J Obstet Gynaecol Can. 2004 May;26(5):503-8.
> >
> > ^^^Johnston SL, Farrell SA, Bouchard C, Farrell SA, Beckerson LA, Comeau
M,
> > Johnston SL, Lefebvre G, Papaioannou A.
>
> Lingonberries are great. I love them! They are much more potent in the
> anti-cancer and anti-bacterial properties than cranberries, plus they
> taste yummier.
>
> Lingonberry preserves are great on everything.
>
> Eating and drinking lingonberries or cranberries can keep your teeth as
> well as your bladder free of bacteria.
>

[Sarah Vaughan]

In message >, David Rind
> writes
>Sarah Vaughan wrote:
>> In message >, Kim
>>E. > writes
>>
>>> One time I got UTI symptoms on the weekend and couldn't see the Dr
>>>til monday - so I drank literally gallons of cranberry juice and
>>>water, and by the time of my dr appt i had no UTI. I asked the Dr if
>>>he believed that cranberry juice could cure UTI's and he snickered
>>>dismissively and said, "Well, you'd have to drink gallons of it to do anything."
>> There isn't any real evidence that it can cure UTIs - the evidence
>>is that drinking it daily (or, to be more exact, drinking a mixture of
>>cranberry and lingonberry juice) can help prevent them.
>
>I think this falls under the absence of evidence isn't evidence
>of absence axiom.

True. Unfortunately, it also seems to fall under the axiom that people
will retain less useful bits of information while missing the more
useful bits. The study on prevention of UTIs seems to have been filtered
through to the public consciousness as a general 'cranberry juice is
anti-UTI' impression which then got translated into it being useful as a
cure. The result is that I see loads of people who tell me that they've
been drinking lots of cranberry juice to cure their UTIs, but hardly any
of them seem to know that they can use it to cut the chances of getting
a UTI in the first place. So I do what I can to spread the word. ;-)

>I don't know of any clinical trials that have looked at whether
>cranberry juice can cure a UTI, since we generally have safe,
>rapidly effective treatments for UTI. As such, there isn't much
>interest in performing a study like this.
>
>But cranberry juice does seem to affect bacterial adherence, and
>is effective in preventing recurrence of UTIs, so it's not hard
>to imagine it might cure UTIs some percentage of the the time.

True. And it's not likely to do any harm, unless you're on warfarin (in
which case it can interact with the warfarin and make it far too
strongly effective). So it's probably worth trying to drink a bucketload
of the stuff if you get a UTI - no evidence that it'll do any good, but
not likely to do any harm and there's at least a reasonable possibility
it may be helping.


All the best,

Sarah

--
"I once requested an urgent admission for a homeopath who had become depressed
and taken a massive underdose" - Phil Peverley

[N. Thornton]

"Amy" > wrote in message >...
> What is a lingonberry, and what does it look like? Does it have other names?
> I've never heard of them.

Lingonberry

syn: mountain cranberry, lingenberry, lingberry: tart red berries
similar to American cranberries but smaller