Healthyfood Cranberry Prevents and Reduces the Risk of Colitis, Scientists Say

By Kyle J. Norton


Colitis is a medical condition characterized by the inflammation of the large intestine, including the colon, caecum, and rectum.

Most cases of colitis are caused by infection, such as bacteria like C. difficile, viruses, and parasites, and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis (UC).

However, according to the study by the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, depending on the causes, colitis can be classified into microscopic colitis, ischemic colitis, segmental colitis associated with diverticula, radiation colitis, diversion colitis, eosinophilic colitis, and Behcet's colitis.

The most common symptoms of colitis are abdominal pain and diarrhea, bleeding per rectum, distention with bloody diarrhea, abdominal bloating and flatulence, and changes in bowel habits.

In severe cases, patients may also experience symptoms of elevated liver enzymes, leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, severe peripheral arthralgias, and chronic watery diarrhea.

Believe it or not, 55 percent of patients stated that UC symptoms over the past year had affected their quality of life, while physicians and nurses estimated that 35% to 37% of patients would have a reduced quality of life.

Conventionally, treatments of colitis are total depending on the type and severity of the condition. For example, in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Self-care at home through home Telemanagement, Web-guided therapy, and pain management are the most common approach accompanied by biological therapy, if necessary.

Some researchers suggested, the promotion of the Western diet over the past few decades may be the leading cause of colitis in patients with IBD.

Dr. Jimmy K. Limdi wrote, "The parallelism between “westernization” and particularly high dietary intakes of total fat (particularly animal fats, ω-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), milk fats), refined sugars, meat and lower intakes of fruit and vegetables, implicates diet in the great risk of developing IBD".

And, "Diet may influence intestinal inflammation through several biologically plausible mechanisms including dietary antigen presentation, alterations in the gut microbiome, the mucosal immune system and epithelial barrier function among others".

Cranberry is an evergreen dwarf shrub, genus Vaccinium, belongings to the family Ericaceae, native to Northern America and Southern Asia. Because of its health benefits, cranberry is cultivated in some parts of the world for commercial profit and used in traditional and herbal medicine for the treatment of wounds, urinary disorders, diarrhea, diabetes, stomach ailments, and liver problems.

On finding a potential compound for the treatment of IBD, researchers examined the effects of cranberry products on preventing dextran sulfate sodium-induced murine colitis.

According to the tested differentiation, both cranberry extract and dried cranberries-fed groups had significant activity against the disease index.

However, dried cranberries were more effective in preventing colitis compared to cranberry extract.

Moreover, both cranberry applications also showed a significant effect on preventing the shortening of colon length.

Biomarkers associated with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) such as colonic myeloperoxidase activity were attenuated in animals fed dried cranberries compared to the controls.

Additionally, dried cranberries also inhibited much better results against the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines caused by the injection of dextran sulfate sodium, compared to the controls.

Based on the findings, researchers wrote, "The current report suggests that cranberries can be applied to prevent and reduce the symptoms of IBD".

Taken altogether, cranberry may be considered a remedy for the prevention and treatment of colitis in IBD patients, pending the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as the international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) Diets enriched with cranberry beans alter the microbiota and mitigate colitis severity and associated inflammation by Monk JM1, Lepp D2, Zhang CP1, Wu W2, Zarepoor L1, Lu JT1, Pauls KP3, Tsao R2, Wood GA4, Robinson LE5, Power KA. (PubMed)
(2) Preventive effects of cranberry products on experimental colitis induced by dextran sulfate sodium in mice by Xiao X1, Kim J1, Sun Q1, Kim D2, Park CS3, Lu TS4, Park Y. (PubMed)
(3) Colitides by Tortora A1, Purchiaroni F, Scarpellini E, Ojetti V, Gabrielli M, Vitale G, Giovanni G, Gasbarrini A. (PubMed)
(4) Dietary practices and inflammatory bowel disease by Jimmy K. Limdi. (PMC)