What to drink for UTI

the person who has a UTI might have to change the way he eats and also he might have to change the way he or she drinks.

just as there might be some foods that are good and not good for the UTI, there are also some drinks that are good and not good for the UTI.

here is a quick list of the most beneficial and healthy drinks for UTI:

1_ beer

2_ apple cider vinegar or other vinegars

3_ water

4_ lemon juice and orange juice

5_ cranberry juice

6_ fruit juices

The UTI can be a very unpleasant disease if proper care is not taken, UTI can develop from just a small simple (uncomplicated) UTI into a massive (complicated) UTI which can be very hard to treat.

and if it was treated then the probability of it returning will be a lot bigger from that if it was treated properly from the beginning.

now we will display for you the best beverages that a person who has a urinary tract infection (UTI) can drink in order to get rid of the UTI or at least speed up the recovery or treatment process or make it less painful.

now we have already listed them above so here we will talk about each one of them individually with details:

1_ Beer:

yes, what you have seen in front of you is right beer is a good remedy for the UTI, despite what some unscientific internet blogs might say. and I don’t say that because I like beer, in fact, I prefer red wine over it, but when it comes to what is best for the UTI I would say with no doubt that beer is the best suited alcoholic drink for the UTI.

while at the same time I do not recommend other alcoholic drinks as they would worsen the UTI rather than easing it.

now, what is it with beer that it became so good for the UTI?

well, the answer to that is divided into two reasons:

-the first one is that beer is 93% water:

due to its high water content (you can say that beer is basically water, now water is very healthy and beneficial to the people who have UTI).

we have discussed the benefits of water in a previous article but I can give you a slight hint of the benefits of water to the UTI now by saying that water flushes the bacteria out as it flows through the urinary tract.

by doing that water can reduce the severity of the infection. also, water can dilute the urine making it harder for the bacteria to find food.

the second one is beer is basically an acidic compound:

if you want to kill a certain type of bacteria or at least hinder its growth put it in an acidic medium and this works on almost every type of bacteria including the bacteria that cause the uti.

making the urine acidic will make the bacteria reproduction and growth process, in general, more difficult if not it will kill the bacteria.

now various types of beer have various degrees of acidity but mainly they are all acidic which means they have the ability to kill the bacteria.

by drinking beer you will make your urine more acidic which in turn will have it’s harming results for the bacteria and positive results for the person who has UTI and his or her UTI condition.

those were the 2 ways that beer can make the UTI get better.

so by having the proper acidity that can kill or at least impede the bacteria’s growth and weaken it, and by having the high water content that can flush the bacteria out of the urinary tract of the person infected with UTI.

by having those qualities

beer has earned its place as one of the most beneficial healthy and safe beverages to drink when a person has a uti.

that’s why beer is recommended as part of the therapy by some doctors in countries where the summer is very hot because there most of the people get infected with UTI once or twice during the summer because of the hot temperature.

so they advise their patients to drink beer to restore the water that the people infected with UTI have lost because of the hot weather and to aid in killing and flushing the bacteria out of the urinary tract as fast as possible.

this an actual medicinal regimen that the doctors prescribe to their patients and it happens mostly in the countries with hot weather but it can also be implicated in the other countries as well.

now, what about the other alcoholic drinks?

well as much as I would love to say yes alcoholic drinks are good for the UTI, but unfortunately no.

alcoholic drinks are bad for UTI except for the beer.

and that is because of their irritant effect on the bladder and the urinary tract in general and also their diuretic effect which can deplete the urinary tract from the necessary water.

more info on this subject is in the drinks not allowed for uti article.

I advise anyone with a UTI to never drink any of the alcoholic beverages (except for the beer of course)


cheers

2_ apple cider vinegar or other kinds of vinegars:

apple cider vinegar or other kinds of vinegar has a lot of acidity you can tell that from just their taste.

you can take apple cider vinegar diluted with water or incorporated with your salads and other foods.

while I don’t advise you to drink it or any other kind of vinegar undiluted or not incorporated with food or something like that because the high acidity of the vinegar can be life-threatening.

with that aside if you dilute the apple cider vinegar properly, then you can drink it preferably not on an empty stomach, but rather you can eat your food and then drink it, for better results with no to least side effects.

put 5 to 10 ml of apple cider vinegar in one liter of water and mix them once a day.

the main component of apple cider vinegar is acetic acid, which is a compound known medicinally for its antibacterial properties (acetic acid is used medicinally to treat ear infections). and that is mainly because it’s highly acidic meaning that acidity kills bacteria.

now there are some speculations about how the acetic acid kills the bacteria some say that it’s not just acidity of the acetic acid that kills the bacteria and that acetic acid may have other mechanisms of killing the bacteria.

whether there is another mechanism or not, all the pharmacists, doctors, and medical practitioners agree that the acidity of the acetic acid plays a major part in the antibiotic properties of the acetic acid.

so, when you drink apple cider vinegar or another type of vinegar (diluted off course) the vinegar will reach your urinary tract.

it will enter the kidney first then when it passes through the filters of the kidney it will go downwards through the ureter reaching the bladder where most of the urinary tract infections (UTI) happen.

then it will reach the bladder which is the pool that contains all the urine, which is in the case of UTI will be filled with bacteria.

when the vinegar reaches the bladder or the kidneys or ureters which can also be infected with UTI it will increase the acidity of the urine making it harder for the bacteria to live in this kind of condition.

and because it contains acetic acid, apple cider vinegar is very acidic in its nature so it will be much harder for the bacteria to survive in your bladder or kidney or ureter.

so if it will not get rid of the UTI apple cider vinegar will definitely aid in the recovery process and make it easier.

be careful not to exceed the daily regimen (mix 5 ml of apple cider vinegar with one liter of water and drink it once a day, one liter of water equals about two water bottles or 3 to 4 glasses of water approximately) if you exceed this daily regimen you will be exposing your self to a lot of problems related to the increased acidity of the body.

problems like esophageal damage, heartburn, stomach aches, and ulcers may appear if you take more than you should.

but if you already have one of them then don’t even consider drinking apple cider vinegar even in the proper daily regimen, or try to drink it with more dilution with water.

other problems that might appear if you drink too much apple cider vinegar might include kidney stones and systemic acidosis and others.

so just do not exceed your daily regimen then you are safe and you will also get rid of the UTI too.

for the other types of vinegar, the dilution methods or incorporation with food methods might differ according to the type of vinegar you use.

some kinds of vinegar are more acidic than others some of them are not too much acidic so they require little dilution like white vinegar.

it’s worth to mention that apple cider vinegar is one of the most acidic kinds of vinegar on the planet.

some companies have made some medicinal products based on the apple cider vinegar, esophageal damage cases in the emergency department of some hospitals have been reported due to these.

here is Bragg’s gluten free organic apple cider vinegar, it’s basically one of the best if not the best apple cider vinegar product that you can find on Amazon, you can check the price.


if you want to know about another way that apple cider vinegar and other kinds of vinegar can treat the UTI, then head over to this article.

if you want to know more about the role of apple cider vinegar in treating UTI head over to this article.

3_ water:

Well everybody knows how important water is to humans in general and I’m sure that everybody has heard that drinking more water is healthy for UTI.

But to what extent can water benefit those people with urinary tract infections?

To a great extent actually. A study that has been done by the NCBI on this subject used instruments and apparatuses to mimic the conditions of the human urinary tract and used a fluid that contains most of the ingredients of the urine.

The researchers put some Escherichia coli bacteria which is the bacteria that is responsible for most cases of UTI in the fluid resembling the urine.

Then they watched the effect of adding water on the bacteria. They have found that the numbers of the bacteria have been reduced, which is mainly because of the dilution effect of water while the study didn’t succeed at establishing the flushing effect of water.

By diluting urine, the particles in the urine that form the nutrition that the bacteria feed on will be harder to be found.

because the water will increase the volume of the urine without increasing the amount of bacterial food that is in the urine. Mostly, bacteria feed on the sugar that is in the urine, if the person was diabetic or pre-diabetic) and on other things too.

while the study didn’t have a proper tool to deliver water in a way that resembles the human urinary tract.

in humans, the water flow in the urinary tract from the kidneys to the bladder will be fast. fast enough to create a flushing effect that will take the bacteria with it out of the body as you urinate.

so what do we conclude from this study and other studies as well?

we concluded that water helps the UTI in two ways

one:

it has the dilution effect that will make it hard for the bacteria to find their food

two:

it also has the flushing effect that will carry with it the bacteria to the outside as flows fast through the urinary tract.

some bacteria have some sort of claws or hinges that will make them adhere to the inner walls of the bladder with more strength.

so it may be hard for just water alone to flush this bacteria out, in that case, you will need to drink other beverages that we have suggested in this article for you besides drinking water.

usually, bacteria with strong claws or hinges means that the UTI is in a progressed stage, but you can totally treat it using the tips that we give you on this site but sometimes you will need to go to the doctor.

ps: most of the uti bacteria nowadays have those hinges and claws because bacteria have gone stronger with time. but those hinges and claws vary in there adherence abilities and strengths but some of them may require you to pay a visit for the doctor.

so make sure to see the doctor if the symptoms are not getting any better.

4_ lemon juice and orange juice:

you may have formed some sort of an idea for what are the next healthy juices for UTI that we are gonna talk about through reading the past passages.

earlier we said that acidity kills the bacteria and that is exactly why we put lemon and orange juice in this list.

orange juice and lemon juice have a reasonable amount of acidity in both of them.

keep in mind that we don’t want our beverages to be too much acidic, in that way they will harm us before they could do any harm to the bacteria.

we want them to have a degree of acidity that will no be dangerous for humans and at the same time, this acidity can kill the bacteria or at least hinder the bacterial growth.

both lemon and orange juice have that kind of acidity in them, they do not harm us and at the same time they are harmful to the bacteria and tasty as well.

also, lemon and orange juice contain a high amount of that good and healthy vitamin C.

this vitamin C (scientific name: ascorbic acid) is one who is mostly responsible for the acidity of the lemon and orange juice.

in addition to that, vitamin C can help people suffering from UTI in another way. vitamin C is known for the role that it plays in strengthening the immune system although more researches need to be done on this subject.

but I can tell you that even if the role of vitamin C in treating the UTI is not established scientifically until now neither it’s role in treating the flu infections.

I can tell you for sure that vitamin C’s role in supporting and strengthening the immune system is well established and recognized scientifically.

and what does that mean for the UTI folks? well, that means everything

because UTI (urinary tract infection) is a bacterial infection, meaning that the bacteria invade our urinary tract and cause these signs and symptoms known as the UTI.

and which system or part of our body is meant with dealing with this kind of invasion?

well, it’s our immune system, so by helping the immune system lemon juice and orange juice (vitamin C) can help in treating the UTI. and I will go further and say that they also can help in treating other infectious diseases in the same way.

5_ cranberry juice:

cranberry juice works in a way that is different from that of the lemon and orange juice.

cranberry juice contains two substances one of them is a type of sugar.

those two substances help in preventing the adherence of the bacteria to the inner walls of the urinary tract and by that help in flushing the bacteria out with urine.

for more information please visit the home remedies article.

6_ fruits juices:

try to drink strawberry juice, mango, banana juice, kiwi juice, or other fruit juices without adding sugar to them. while other fruits like apple and other sweet fruits are also good for the UTI but not quit as the less sweet fruits.

we know that bacteria can feed on sugar so we don’t want to drink too much of that sweet fruit juices.

but at the same time fruits like apple, cantaloupe, pineapples, and other sweet fruits can contain some sugars that are healthy for the UTI.

just as the cranberry juice contains a sugar compound that can prevent the adherence of the bacteria, other fruits can contain similar sugars too.

but we don’t want to go far and drink a lot of sweet fruit juices that may end up in backfiring results.

so we just want to keep a moderate consumption of them and better we can drink the juices of the less sweet fruits like strawberry, banana, kiwi, mango and grapes juice.

mango and bananas juices are very healthy for the UTI.

on the other hand, the water that is in the juice will come in handy for those who have uti, because it can flush out the bacteria as we explained earlier.

those fruits that I mentioned earlier (even the sweet ones) contain a lot of healthy and beneficial vitamins that can strengthen the immune system against the UTI.

so this is another advantage of drinking fruit juices.

also, those vitamins contribute to the good health of our bodies and some of them give energy to the body.

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so we have reached the end of our list. those were the 6 best drinks and beverages that people with UTI can drink.

in the end, I would like to thank you for having the patience of reading this article till the end. thank you, keep healthy and goodbye.

ps: I’m not a native speaker of English so excuse me if I made any mistakes writing this article. bye.

Ph. Abbas

A pharmacist who decided to write detailed articles about urinary tract infections (UTI).

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