Cranberries to Fight Against Bacteria !
The health benefits of cranberries have been widely demonstrated over the years. A small red pearl sought for its antioxidant benefits, used to prevent urinary tract infections and cystitis, as a treatment for stomach ulcers or to avoid cavities and plaque, it now appears in an even more fundamental superhero role!
Quebec researchers have linked cranberries as an additional weapon to the battle between the human body to bacteria. Combining cranberry extracts with antibiotics, researchers at McGill University and the National Institute for Scientific Research (INRS) in Montreal have discovered that bacteria do not develop resistance.
“Usually, when you treat a bacterium with an antibiotic for a while in the lab, it definitely develops resistance,” says Nathalie Tufenkji, chemical engineering professor at McGill University and lead author of the study. “The bacteria were treated with both an antibiotic and cranberry extract, and resistance did not appear.
The impact of this discovery could be the response to this global threat of concern to the World Health Organization (WHO): the increasing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics and the overuse of antibiotics in some countries.
This major scientific discovery on the properties of cranberries paves the way for further research into this solution to reduce the doses of antibiotics needed against known bacteria and others yet to come. Is cranberry the fruit of the future?
Sources :
- McGill University Newsroom : Cranberries join forces with antibiotics to fight bacteria
- Advanced science, Wiley Online Library: « Proanthocyanidin Interferes with Intrinsic Antibiotic Resistance Mechanisms of Gram-Negative Bacteria » (Adv. Sci. 2019, 1802333. DOI : 10.1002/advs.201802333)
- La Presse : La canneberge pour contrer la résistance aux antibiotiques (French only)
