Invisible Women: do cranberries work for recurrent UTIs?

UTIs are fifty times more common in young women than in young men

My very dear GFPs, hello and welcome, I am here to interrupt your Coronation festivities with some topical information about…cranberries! How’s that for alliteration.

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Gender data gap of the week

It is a rare woman who has never experienced the horror of the UTI. Ouch, I’m crossing my legs just thinking about it…wait, do I have one coming on or is that just psychosomatic 😱😱😱 *downs a pint of water*

For those lucky few of you who have no idea what I’m on about, let me explain. A UTI is a urinary tract infection. You may know this condition as “cystitis” although this is actually just one type of UTI: there are many to choose from aren’t we lucky! The symptoms of a UTI include things like: intense pain while peeing; constant urges to pee including when you don’t actually need to; pain in your abdomen; temperature (and all the symptoms that go along with that; blood in your urine. It is, basically, utterly vile. It leaves you chained to your toilet and it inevitably hits at the most inappropriate times, like in the middle of the night when you’re staying over at your boyfriend’s house for the first time, or when you’re backpacking in the wilds of wherever and there is no access to a pharmacy. I can neither confirm nor deny on whether either of those examples come from my personal experience.

What I can confirm is that UTIs are extremely common. They are the most common adult bacterial infection globally, affecting more than 150 million people each year worldwide. $1.6 billion is spent annually on UTI healthcare in the US alone, where there are 100,00 hospital admissions for UTIs every year.

Given all this, you might think that we would be excellent at diagnosing this extremely common infection. To which I can only say: lol, because, dear GFP, UTIs are a female-dominated condition. Although anyone can develop a UTI, they are about 50 times more common in young adult women than in young adult men — a disparity that is put down to women’s shorter urethra. 85% of all UTI diagnoses are in women and 60% of women over the age of 18 will suffer one or more UTIs. 30% of women who have a UTI may have a recurrence within six to 12 months.