Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

D-mannose is super effective at getting rid of urinary tract infections, and for PREVENTING them, once you get rid of them. These easy to swallow, clear vegetable capsule, 3/4 inch long X 1/4 inch wide, 500 mg, NO fillers of ANY kind, NO magnesium stearates, Dioxides, NO preservatives, or artificial ingredients, have really helped me AND my dog! The powder inside them is a very fine, white powder. Even though the capsule is easy enough to swallow, I open it up and pour out the contents onto my yogurt and onto my dogs food. This way I don't have to try to try to get my dog to eat a pill!!! I gave these to her, twice a day, in her food. WORKED beautifully to clear up her UTI!! Then i just kept giving them to her as a preventative and the vet tested her, she has been clear ever since!! I used three a day, in yogurts, smoothies, or just popped the pill. I noticed improvement within a day an half, at most. Now, I am using them to prevent a UTI coming back. I, AND the dog has not gotten a UTI again since using d-mannose! http://www.naturafoundation.co.uk/monografie/D-Mannose.html In most cases, about 80 percent, urinary tract infection in adults is caused by a variety of pathogens (infectious bacteria) normally present in the intestines, especially in the rectum (colon). Nearly all infections of the lower urinary tract are caused by a few strains of E. coli bacteria - uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC). Various harmless strains of E. coli are normally present in the body - but they do not belong in the urinary tract. These bacteria have multiple little hairs called cilia that function like little feet that allow them to climb from the skin around the vagina, up the urinary tube, into the bladder. If E. coli get into the bladder or the urethra (tube that carries urine from the bladder), the body has ways of fighting them off - including the obvious methods of simply flushing them out with the urine. These bacteria, however, have evolved ways of anchoring themselves to the cells of the urinary tract. The invading E. coli take advantage of receptors naturally found on the cells of the mucosal lining of the urinary tract. These receptors are like molecular "docking bays" for substances which the cells need for their normal growth and development. Like pirates in an old movie, E. coli use "grappling hooks", called type I pili, to first hook on to these receptors, and then to invade the cell. These pathogenic grappling hooks are composed of long, fibrous chains of a molecular "glue" called adhesin. Once inside the cell, E. coli can live and reproduce in safety, shielded from many of the body's defensive immune responses. In fact, these immune responses are so sophisticated that when the body detects that cells have been infected and activates the cell suicide program to destroy the bacteria, E. coli can actually flee the dying host cell before it is flushed out - and look for new cells to invade! When someone with bladder infection consumes a dose of D-mannose, the sugar is absorbed in the upper GI tract, but at a much slower rate than most other sugars. (For example, glucose is absorbed more than eight times faster.) Moreover, unlike other sugars, D-mannose is not readily converted to glycogen (and stored) in the liver, but instead passes directly into the bloodstream largely unchanged what makes it suitable for diabetics. As the D-mannose-laden blood passes through the kidneys, a considerable proportion of the sugar is extracted and added to the urine. The D-mannose-sweetened urine flows from the kidneys through the ureters to the bladder and on to the urethra, literally sugar-coating any free-floating E. coli it might encounter, so they cannot stick to cells any more. It also unsticks most of the E. coli already "velcro-ed" to the inner surface of the bladder and urinary tract, ultimately flushing them all down the drain.Several years of clinical experience have shown that D-Mannose is just as effective at curing bladder infections caused by E. coli as antibiotic drugs