Cranberry juice still remains the most effective way to fight a urinary tract infection. With scientific evidence now supporting the age-old wisdom that cranberries, whether in sauce or as juice, prevent UTIs, people have wondered if there was an element of the berry that, if extracted and condensed, perhaps in pill form, would be as effective as drinking the juice or eating cranberry sauce. A new study from researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute helps to answer that question.

The study tested proanthocyanidins or PACs, a group of flavonoids found in cranberries. Because they were thought to be the ingredient that gives the juice its infection-fighting properties, PACs have been considered a hopeful target for an effective extract. The new WPI report, however, shows that cranberry juice, itself, is far better at preventing biofilm formation, which is the precursor of infection, than PACs alone.

“What we have shown is that cranberry juice’s ability to prevent biofilms is more complex than we may have originally thought,” said Terri Camesano, professor of chemical engineering at WPI and senior author on the paper. “For a while, the field focused on these PACs, but the data shows that they aren’t the silver bullet.”

In the new study, Camesano’s team, which included graduate student Paola Andrea Pinzón-Arango and intern Kerrie Holguin, incubated two different strains of E. coli in the presence of two different mixtures of commercially available cranberry juice cocktail. They also incubated the bacteria separately in the presence of PACs, but not juice. While the juice cultures completely prevented biofilm formation, the PACs showed only limited ability to reduce biofilm formation, and only after extended exposure to the E. coli.

“Cranberries have been recognized for their health benefits for a number of years, especially in the prevention of UTIs,” the authors write in the new paper. “While the mechanisms of action of cranberry products on bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation are not fully understood…this study shows that cranberry juice is better at inhibiting biofilm formation than isolated A-type cranberry flavonoids and PACs, although the reasons for this are not yet clear.”

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