tel aviv | Cranberry juice, long dissed as a mere folk remedy for relieving urinary tract infections, is finally getting some respect.
Professor Itzhak Ofek, a researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, has been studying the tart berry for two decades, and his results show that its juice does indeed combat urinary tract infections.
And he’s discovered the beverage has additional medicinal qualities as well. Ofek has found that cranberry juice exhibits antiviral properties against the flu, can prevent cavities and lessens the reoccurrence of gastric ulcers. Unfortunately for half the human race, however, new research suggests that the healing power of cranberries applies only to women.
The remarkable healing property in cranberries stems from a heavy molecule known as non-dialyzable material, or NDM. This molecule, isolated by Ofek and his colleagues, seems to coat some bodily surfaces with Teflon-like efficiency, preventing infection-causing agents from taking root.
Surprisingly, NDM appears to have no effect on some of the good bacteria in our bodies, says Ofek. His seminal research on the subject, in collaboration with professor Nathan Sharon from the Weizmann Institute, appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1991. “We understood that there was something in cranberry juice that doesn’t let infections adhere to a woman’s bladder,” Ofek says. “We figured it was a specific inhibitor and proved this to be the case.”
After the 1991 study, Ofek conjectured that if cranberries could protect against bacterial invasion in the bladder, “Could they work wonders elsewhere?” He took the question to Tel Aviv University’s School of Dental Medicine and together with professor Ervin Weiss produced positive results.
“We found that NDM inhibits adhesion of oral bacteria to tooth surfaces and as a consequence reduced the bacterial load that causes cavities in the mouth,” says Ofek. “And after a clinical trial, we formulated a mouthwash based on cranberries which was patented by Tel Aviv University.”
But Ofek wasn’t content to stop at cavities. Working with Weiss and professor Zichria Rones at Hadassah Medical and Dental School, he found that NDM inhibits the flu virus from attaching to cells and prevented experimental flu infections in animal models.
Most recently, Ofek collaborated with Dr. Haim Shmuely, a resident physician at the Beilinson Hospital and lecturer at Tel Aviv University, to find that cranberry also inhibits two-thirds of the “unhealthy” bacteria that clings to gastric cells, which lead to ulcers.
“The results were very interesting,” says Ofek. “Cranberry helped reduce the load of this bacteria, Helicobacter pylori, in the gut. In combination with antibiotics, it reduced repeat ulcers from approximately 15 percent to about 5 percent.”
Today, a cranberry research team composed of scientists from across Israel, and headed by Professors Ofek and Weiss, are investigating the berry’s healing powers. Recently, it was found that cranberry NDM may also act as an anti-cancer agent. The scientific research methods behind the research have been patented by Tel Aviv University.
Ofek’s recommendation is that women drink two glasses a day to treat certain infections. And because “there is still so much we don’t know about cranberries, I would suggest that men also drink two glasses a day,” he concludes.