171 Ashley Ave.
Charleston, SC 29425
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September 2008
Can Foods and Natural Products be used as "Medicines"?
It's a common belief that certain foods or natural products can prevent or even cure certain diseases or ailments. For example, cranberry juice is thought to prevent or treat urinary tract infections.
"There have been some studies showing cranberries work, but most haven't been conducted in a systematic and controlled way, in the same ways researchers study conventional medicines," says DCRI researcher Jennifer Donovan, PhD.
Foods and other natural products that are sold over the counter as dietary supplements contain a wide variety of naturally occurring chemicals that can be used to prevent or treat diseases, she says.
But solid science is needed for the medical field to recommend these products.
"Some parents may want to avoid prescription drugs," she notes, "so they're interested in other more natural treatments - like cranberry juice for urinary tract infections (UTI) or green tea to maintain a healthy weight. (It's not widely known that children get UTIs, but they do get them, notes Dr. Donovan.)
"But parents want them tested by scientifically sound methods - which is what we do at MUSC."
Dr. Donovan has studied foods as natural pharmacological agents - particularly the flavonoids in wine, fruits, green tea, and chocolate - for 15 years.
Currently she is lead investigator in one of nine studies on the benefits of cranberry juice on UTI.
Funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, these studies aim to determine if cranberry juice can be used to prevent or treat UTIs. Dr. Donovan's study focuses on determining which chemicals are responsible for its positive effects.
Unlike previous cranberry juice studies, all of these NIH-funded studies are controlled, with well-defined cranberry products and dosages, and performed on different populations that include kids and pregnant women.
"We want to know which compounds in the cranberry are present in the urine and bladder, and how they work against the infections," explains Dr. Donovan.
Foods are challenging to study as pharmacologic agents because there is so much variability, notes Donovan. "Depending on the season, the farm, the company that manufactures the product, there can be major differences in the amounts of chemicals present in the final product. When you buy a bottle of ibuprofen you know each tablet contains 200mg of active drug. This is not the case with cranberry juice."
The overreaching goal is to provide evidence for how cranberries work to prevent UTI and to support the use of cranberries as a first line of treatment for UTIs.
"We hope these studies will allow physicians to be able to confidently recommend cranberry juice for UTI and will help reduce our dependence on antibiotics," explains Dr. Donovan.
Green tea: a weight loss aid?
Like cranberry juice, green tea has been associated with many health benefits and effects, including weight loss.
Dr. Donovan is also principal investigator of a study focused on whether green tea can help people lose weight. Conducted on healthy but obese adults, the study is double blinded with a placebo group and uses a well-characterized green tea product,.
The study is funded by the South Carolina Nutrition Research Consortium. With 17 percent of kids in the United States diagnosed as obese, one of the consortium's priorities is studying how to prevent childhood obesity.
"The obesity problem is getting worse, so hopefully this could be a potential therapy to help kids maintain or lose weight," says Dr. Donovan.
She's hoping the results will show that her green tea capsules - which contain a dosage equal to three cups of green tea daily - are decreasing appetite and increasing metabolism.
If it proves effective, it will be expanded to additional populations, including diabetics and children.
"It may be something that could help, coupled with lifestyle and behavioral changes," says Dr. Donovan.
"But it's not a magic pill."
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Inderjit Singh, PhD
Scientific Director
Darby Children's Research Inst. |
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Bernard L. Maria, MD, MBA
Executive Director
Darby Children's Research Inst. |
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