D-Mannose for UTIs?

Geobabe · October 16, 2003, 4:26pm

Does anyone know anything about this? I’d never heard of it until yesterday, but it’s being touted as this great new thing for treating UTIs. I am plagued with recurring UTIs and am almost ready to try anything at this point. I do have an appointment with a urologist next week to investigate physical causes, but I’m also looking into what else I can be doing for this problem. I already drink lots of water, urinate after sex, wipe front to back, all of that and none of it helps. Cranberry and Cystex do help, but I’d like to be able to do more about this problem.

According to this site D-Mannose works in much the same way as cranberry, by preventing the bacteria from sticking to the bladder lining, but since they’re selling the stuff, I’m inclined to be a little skeptical. I also found posts on health-related message boards saying that it’s great stuff and works wonders, but I want more information. Anyone?

alterego · October 16, 2003, 4:40pm

Geobabe you might be interested in this thread on www.healthboards.com.

Geobabe · October 16, 2003, 4:55pm

That actually is one of the pages I found when doing a Google search about it. I was hoping to get some feedback from the Dopers as well.

Geobabe · October 20, 2003, 5:41pm

Anyone? Bueller?

Roches · October 20, 2003, 6:49pm

The idea behind D-mannose seems to be that it promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria and may help prevent pathogenic bacteria from adhering to mucosal walls. The former works because bacteria which produce lactic acid by fermentation can use mannose as an energy source, while many harmful bacteria can’t. This tends to ‘crowd out’ harmful bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli. So basically you’re just providing food to the ‘good bacteria’ and starving the bad ones.

The other mechanism – preventing binding to the mucosal wall – is a little more complicated and I’m not sure if they mean the bacteria mistake mannose-oligosaccharides for their own signalling molecules or if they bind to the oligosaccharides rather than the mucosal wall. At any rate, D-mannose alone doesn’t seem to do this – you may need a mannose-rich oligosaccharide.