An evidence advent calendar!

It turns out that Cochrane’s for Christmas, not just for life, with evidence in the Cochrane Library on all manner of festive things from gold, frankincense and myrrh to stockings! Ok, some of the links are a bit tenuous, but we hope you’ll enjoy our advent calendar.

Owing to some trouble with the technology elves, we couldn’t make it interactive (boo!) but each day we’ll post some Cochrane evidence related to the day’s picture, below the calendar. If you think of any others, do share them via the comments box.

Now cranberries are just for Christmas – new evidence suggests cranberry juice unlikely to prevent urinary tract infections

Key message: The current evidence suggests that any benefit of taking cranberry products to prevent urinary tract infection is likely to be small and people may find taking them over a long period of time unacceptable.

As garlic is to vampires, so cranberries are to urinary tract infections (UTIs); or so many people believe, drinking cranberry juice in the hope of avoiding bouts of this unpleasant complaint. Cranberry products have been used for this purpose for a very long time and though it’s unclear how they might help, one theory is that cranberries prevent bacteria from sticking to the walls of the bladder.