neem is believed to have an antibacterial activity that’s why people think that it has a beneficial effect on UTI. the short term usage of neem may be good in general for the UTI, however, it has been found that a long term usage of any part of this tree has been associated with dreadful side effects so I don’t recommend using any part of this tree as a treatment for any disease especially not for UTI.
however, in this article, we are going to investigate if this tree has any potential healthy effects for the UTI if it has any and also we are gonna see what are its dangers.
neem tree is considered a weed, and in some countries it’s considered illegal to buy, sell, or carry the seeds of this tree.
originally neem is used to prevent insects from eating the trees and sometimes neem extracts are sprayed on the clothes in some countries like India also to get rid of the insects.
so, it’s an insect repellent. neem has a compound in it that is called nimbdin, this compound is believed by some people to have antibacterial activity (by the way it is the compound that is mostly responsible for the bitter taste of neem) however, some studies that I have searched show the exact opposite.
in a study, I have searched nimbdin showed various effects on the central nervous system (meaning on the brain) these effects where mostly sedation and other effects on the motility of the gastrointestinal tract and other effects but none of them had any relation to the bacteria.
in another study nimbdin showed the exact opposite of the antibacterial effect, it showed that nimbdin has inhibited the macrophages and neutrophils which are parts of our immune system from functioning completely, and we know that the macrophages and neutrophils (which are white blood cells and they are a part of the immune system) are exactly what we need to kill the bacteria and get rid of it.
so, in the latter study nimbdin worked against our immune system and this is the exact opposite of what we need to treat the uti.
so, if nimbdin is not responsible for the antibacterial effect of neem, then are these claims that neem has antibacterial activity are wrong?
well, these claims have some basis to it, in fact, some researchers have noticed a compound in the neem oil that has antibacterial activities, this compound is called NIM-76, the researchers saw that this compound had the ability to stimulate certain cells of our immune system to attack the infection, also it had the ability to stop some viral infections, not just bacterial infections.
this is an advantage for the neem tree and especially for this compound (NIM-76) because some of the types of the UTI are caused by viral infections, in general NIM-76 has antimicrobial activities (antimicrobial means antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal).
NIM-76 is not the only compound in neem that has antimicrobial activity.
one study shows that various neem extracts showed antimicrobial activities, and they almost shared the same way in dealing with bacteria and other microbes, they all prevent the growth of these bacteria and microbes through breaking down the cell wall of these bacteria and microbes.
ps: all bacteria and viruses and fungi have a cell wall that protects the bacteria or the virus … etc from the environment that surrounds them, when the neem extracts breakdown the cell wall of these microbes, there is no other thing to protect them so they eventually die.
the first thing that you wanna do when you have a UTI is to kill all the bacteria in your urinary tract that caused it, neem extracts have that ability to kill the bacteria or at least inhibit its growth, that’s why we can’t say that neem is not good for the UTI.
for example, an extract from the neem leaves showed an ability to kill some bacteria of certain types like Staphylococcus aureus and MRSA bacteria, and by the way, those bacteria are only killed by powerful and expensive antibiotics nowadays, having this ability to kill those bacteria is the most important benefit that the neem leaves extract can give to the patients of UTI.
not just the leaves extracts that have an antibacterial activity also the seed extracts of neem have an antibacterial activity but to a lesser extent from the neem leaves extracts.
neem has compounds in it that have a great ability to kill the bacteria and microbes that grow on food so neem is basically now studied for that purpose but as long as it has this ability to kill the bacteria, am sure that it will be studied for other purposes like treating the UTI.
maybe in the future pharmacists can extract from neem all the compounds that have the ability to kill the E. coli, Klebsiella, and the Staphylococcus saprophyticus bacteria, (those are the bacteria that cause the UTI) And the fungi Candida albicans which also cause the UTI.
so, if pharmacists can extract from neem the compounds that can kill all those bacteria and fungi that I mentioned earlier and leave the other compounds that have no benefits for the UTI whatsoever, then this will be the best use for this neem tree.
on the other hand, the extraction methods that have been done until now for neem, all of them did not fully extract each of the neem compounds separately, for example, you can find in the neem leaves extract a lot of compounds some of them good and some of them bad for the UTI and in the seed extract you can find compounds that have nothing to do with UTI and maybe you can find some compounds that are bad for you and can cause you some bad side effects.
the same case here is in the neem oil
Some people drink it to relieve them from their UTI or so although sometimes it works for them in most of the time it causes them irritation in their stomach and burning and in high doses it can be fatal because it has a lot of compounds that are toxic to the human body.
the same thing goes with the other types of extracts from neem. Almost every extract from neem has a sedative effect not to mention if you eat the raw leaves or bark or the seeds of this tree they have a weed-like effect so you could eat a neem leaf to treat your UTI then the pain goes away but you don’t know that maybe you were too high to feel any pain, and the cause of the UTI has not been treated.
for these reasons I don’t recommend using any part or extract of neem to treat the UTI unless if you are willing to endure the sour taste and the disturbance that might happen to your stomach and gastrointestinal tract and the potential toxicity and sedation of any of the neem parts or extracts, and I don’t think that anyone has the capability to endure those harmful side effects.
even in the areas where the neem trees grow the natives of these areas do not use it to treat diseases like the UTI or so but they rather use it as on their clothes or plants to prevent the insects from eating them so they rather use it as an insecticide.
in general, because it contains diverse numbers of compounds and each one of these compounds has it’s properties and characteristics, more studies and researches need to be done before we can benefit from the neem tree.
the neem tree has the ability to treat a lot of diseases and one of them is the UTI but it needs the intervention of pharmacists and scientists and doctors may be to make the best of this neem tree.
but for now, unfortunately, I don’t recommend it for the medicinal purpose of treating the UTI. however, if you want to buy neem anyway which I still don’t recommend here is a neem oil product on amazon also here is neem extract product in 90 capsules.
keep in mind that I still don’t recommend using these products or any neem products to treat UTI and if you buy you will be buying them on your own responsibility.