Green tea and cranberry extracts as alternative therapies for UC

Hi everyone,

I've had UC since 2003 and joined this forum many years ago but haven't posted anything in a very long time.

I came back to share some success I've had with supplementing my standard treatments (Lialda and Canasa suppositories) with green tea and cranberry extract.

I used to take both supplements once a day for other health benefits but then discontinued them over a year ago in a effort to simplify my daily routine and save a little money. I don't recall noticing a pickup in my UC symptoms at the time but since that happens anyway I wouldn't necessarily have associated it with dropping the two supplements.

I was cleaning out a cabinet last summer when I found some green tea capsules that were a little past their expiration date but were probably still fine, so rather than toss them I started taking them. I was also going through a fairly bad period with my UC. Within 2-3 days of taking them I noticed really significant decreases in my symptoms. Mucous production was way down (mostly gone really) and I had less urgency and fewer BM's. Wondering if this had anything to do with the green tea, I did some research and found that there's actually some clinical evidence that it can be as effective as some standard pharmaceuticals:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3672863/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26251571

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23846486

Be careful with dosing. Too much can make your symptoms worse. I had to so a fair amount of experimentation to find the sweet spot that worked for me, which was one standard potency capsule twice a day.

Further cleaning out of the same cabinet two weeks I found some Cran-Max cranberry extract and decided to try that too. I saw a further reduction in symptoms. I am now at the lowest symptom level I've been at in many years (maybe ever since onset) without prednisone.

There's no direct clinical evidence that shows cranberry extract is effective in treating UC. There is, however a lot of evidence that it has strong anti-inflammatory properties:

http://www.cranberryinstitute.org/doclib/doclib.cgi/2/

And I read one theory that it may help in UC by altering the intestinal flora. The reason cranberry products can be effective with urinary tract infections (UTI's) is because it disrupts certain bacterial strain's ability to adhere to the wall of the bladder and UT and they get flushed out. Something similar may be going on in the colon.

I know that nothing works for everyone and the reason I'm taking the time to put this out there for everyone is because if you're not responding to standard treatments, these are both easy, low cost safe things to try as adjuvant to whatever your doctor has you on. I'm still taking the Lialda and doing the Canasa suppositories every night. I think I still get some benefit from the Canasa, the Lialda I'm not so sure about.

This is the great tea supplement I'm taking:

http://www.vitaminshoppe.com/p/green-tea-extract-470-mg-100-capsules/vs-1678

There are lots of other green tea extracts for sale under other brands with exactly the same proportion of active ingredients, which means that they're all being sourced from one supplier, so you can shop on price.

For the cranberry extract I'm taking two of these capsules twice a day. There doesn't seem to be any danger of getting worse as you up the dose.

http://www.lifeextension.com/vitamins-supplements/item01424/optimized-cran-max-with-ellirose

These are also available on amazon.com. With cranberry, look for something made with Cran-max. It's a true full fruit extract and they add something to enhance delivery to the lower GI tract. Lots of the other cranberry supplements out there are just concentrated processed juice.

Anyway, I hope this helps someone else as much as it's helped me. The final straw for me posting in this came a few days ago when I was sitting on the toilet thinking "I should keep a couple of magazines in here to read" and realizing that I'm almost pooping like a normal person again. Feel free to ask questions if you have any and I'll do my best to answer them.

People used think that cranberry helped with UTI's by making the urine more acidic, but it is now known that there's a different mechanism of action. I don't think that a cranberry supplement would make your GI tract noticeably more acidic. It's already a highly acidic environment.

Cystex includes other ingredients that are not derived from cranberries. According to their website "More than just cranberry concentrate, its proprietary blend also contains D-Mannose, inulin, bromeliad, and vitamin C, a combination designed to boost bladder health." so possibly one of the other ingredients like the vitamin C is causing your cramping.

Drinking green tea is great and certainly healthy but won't provide the same dosage of the anti-inflammatory compounds as the extracts. It's possible you might see the benefits with the extracts that you don't see with the brewed tea.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I should start drinking green tea again too, but I'm a sucker for my coffee.

Richard - yes the vitamin C is probably what is killing me with the cystex. But that stuff really does help prevent e-coli from adhering to the bladder wall. At least it seems to work for me when I feel a UTI coming on.

I just dug up my green tea + acai supplement and will give it a try. I have nothing to lose at this point and that is one of my supplements that does not cause any gut distress. I wonder if the acai would do something similar to the cranberry?

Thanks. I will let you know. I took 2 1500 mg green tea pills yesterday at different times of the day and I see A LOT less blood today (so far). Fingers crossed. I actually have pomegranate pills somewhere in my stash too....don't want to try more than one supplement at a time but will try that one once I am out of this flare.

Again, thanks for the info.

I take Tart cherry everyday too!