More than half of women experience at least one urine infection throughout his life. It is more common in women than in men due to both hormonal causes as in the presence of a shorter urethra. Of all those who have it once, about a quarter experience it recurrent. That is, the one that has it once will go through it again with a not insignificant probability. In some cases they occur so frequently that a preventive drug based on a low dose of antibiotic every day. It is very effective, but also an open door for bacterial resistance. That is why a study recently published in British Medical Journalpointing to an antiseptic drug as a much safer alternative.
It is very interesting; because, at the moment, these patients do not have a good prophylactic drug. It is often said that cranberry supplements can help prevent infections. However, the available scientific literature does not give very good results about.
In the absence of blueberries, it can be useful drink a lot of water, do not retain urine and maintain good hygiene, especially after sexual intercourse. But when there is a recurring urine infection, all this may be insufficient. Now, thanks to this finding, many women could say goodbye to antibiotics and put themselves one step further from the danger of superbugs.
When can we say that a urine infection is recurrent?
A urinary tract infection is considered to be recurrent when there are at least three infections per year or two in a six-month period.
In these cases, patients are prescribed a low dose of antibiotic each day to prevent bacteria from growing in their urinary tract. It is effective, of course. The problem is that if the bacteria are in continuous contact with the antibiotics they can develop resistancelike a soldier who learns his enemy’s tactics after watching many battles.
For this reason, it is necessary to explore other ways, since it has been seen that the cranberry does not offer everything that it promises. This is where a antiseptic called methenamine hippurate. It has been seen that it can help prevent urine infections, although it has not been studied in great depth. Or at least not until now.
An antiseptic to avoid resorting to antibiotics
Methenamine hippurate is a drug that sterilize urine. That is, it prevents bacteria from proliferating in it. In this way, it prevents them from reaching the point of generating an infection and it is necessary to resort to antibiotics.
At least that is what had been concluded in previous studies. The problem is that the information provided by these studies is insufficient and more trials are needed. For this reason, a team of scientists from the Newcastle upon Tyne Freeman Hospitalin the United Kingdom, launched the study that has just been published.
For this, it had the voluntary participation of 240 women with at least six episodes of urine infection per year before the start of the study. They were divided into two groups, in such a way that those in the first followed the usual treatment based on antibiotics for a year and the second took methenamine hippurate. In addition, they were given three monthly evaluations in periods that lasted up to 18 months.
It should be noted that in neither of the two groups did the episodes of urine infection disappear. However, they were reduced up to 0.89 per year with antibiotics and 1.38 with the antiseptic. It is true that with antibiotics the reduction was greater. However, going down from 6 to 1.38 is already quite an achievement.
Regarding adverse reactions, they were similar in both groups. Of course, the authors of the study point out that there were four patients who with the antiseptic had to Go to the hospital when developing urine infection. And six of them had fever. This is a common symptom in these types of conditions, but it is still important to be aware of.
In any case, there is still more to investigate. The authors acknowledge that the lack of blinding in the study may be a limitation. This means that the patients knew if they were taking antibiotics or the antiseptic, so suggestion, placebo effect or simple chance cannot be ruled out. In addition, there were differences between the antibiotics prescribed, which could affect the results. Finally, it is necessary to analyze the long-term effects of methenamine hippurate. All in all, it’s early to throw bells on the wing, but people with recurring UTIs may soon have an alternative to dangerous antibiotics and ineffective cranberries. This is how he explained it to hypertextual Chris Harding, Chair of the European Association of Urology Guidelines Panel:
“I hope that this test will be looked at by both guideline writers and policy makers and if it becomes a recommended guideline the availability should increase. It is currently widely available in the UK but I am not sure how much is used in the rest of the world.”
Chris Harding, Chair of the European Association of Urology Guidelines Panel
Knowing this, perhaps the alternative to antibiotics is much closer than we thought.