Hurray! Finally, D-Mannose had a chance to make its way out of the woods of “anecdotal evidence” into the spotlight of “randomized clinical study”. A randomized clinical trial proves that D-mannose prevents UTI. Maybe now doctors would be more eager to prescribe D-mannose to the patients?
Update from 04/2017: read my Top 5 D-Mannose supplements review
I came across this article, published just couple months ago, the title is “D-mannose powder for prophylaxis of recurrent urinary tract infections in women: a randomized clinical trial.” The name doesn’t sound appealing to a layman, but physicians love this type of stuff.
Randomized clinical trials are the gold standard of scientific experiments to prove that a treatment works. In this particular case, the experiment was conducted with a group of 308 women with a history of recurrent UTI. The participants were randomly broken down into three groups. One group was receiving D-Mannose daily. Another group was given an antibiotic, also daily. And the third group (control group) just went on with their lives without any preventive methods.
After 6 months the results for all groups were compared and this is what the article states: “Overall 98 patients (31.8%) had recurrent UTI: 15 (14.6) in the D-mannose group, 21 (20.4) in Nitrofurantoin group, and 62 (60.8) in no prophylaxis group”. So as you can see, the girls who were on D-mannose were better off!
Imagine taking Nitrofurantoin (for example, Macrobid) for six months. Every day! According to the study, some women reported mild side effects, while being on the drug. Read about less lucky patients taking Macrobid on www.askapatient.com (not so mild side effects list).
In case you are wondering, the preventive dosage of D-Mannose, used for the experiment was 2gm of D-mannose powder in 200 ml, daily. You can order the powder on Amazon.
Would you rather drink an antibiotic daily or take a natural supplement?
I did my layman “experiment” and looked up D-mannose reviews and compared them with the reviews on Macrobid on WebMd.com.
Here are the results (as of 04/12/2014):
D-Mannose:
134 total reviews.
- Effectiveness: 4.56 out of 5
- Ease of Use: 4.69 out of 5
- Satisfaction: 4.59 out of 5
Macrobid:
432 total reviews.
- Effectiveness: 2.83 out of 5
- Ease of Use: 2.85 out of 5
- Satisfaction: 2.05 out of 5
You can order D-mannose on Amazon or buy it at Whole Foods Market or a similar store. Here are the most popular brands of D-mannose online:
- D-Mannose 500 mg – 120 Caps ($17 for 500 mg). This one is super popular and sold in capsules. Which is not necessary: D-mannose tastes pretty good (like sugar).
- BulkSupplements Pure D-Mannose Powder (250 grams) ($30 for 17oz!). This one is much cheaper if you re-calculate by weight.
- Solaray Solaray D-Mannose with Cranactin, 1000mg, 120 Count (contains cranberry extract).