In Reply to: Raspberry juice was tested on pigs posted by tracy on Saturday, 6. March 2010 at 17:41 Bali Time:
From clinical trials from the Center for Clinical Effectiveness;
Clinicians at Southern Health have heard anecdotal evidence that raspberry juice can prevent
traveller's diarrhoea. Gastroenteritis is a regular occurrence in hospital wards and any
successful, prophylactic treatment for gastroenteritis could have significant patient care and
economic advantages.
Clinical
Question;
In older hospital patients or those in residential care does ingestion of raspberry juice or
raspberry cordial in addition to standard care, as compared to standard care alone, reduce the
incidence of viral and/or bacterial gastroenteritis?
Anecdotally, the leaves, roots and fruit of the red raspberry plant are said to have medicinal properties and have
been used to treat a variety of ailments in both humans and animals including assisting with morning sickness and
labour (leaves), sore throats and wound cleansing (roots) and to treat and prevent gastroenteritis (fruit). However,
despite reported widespread use in Australia, there is very little evidence to support these claims.1
In vitro studies of raspberry cordial (35% fruit), raspberry juice, raspberry leaf tea and raspberry leaf extract have
shown that raspberry juice and raspberry cordial appear to have antibacterial properties, reducing the growth of
bacterial species including Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Shigella sonnei, Clostridium perfringens and
three Salmonella serovars.1 The same research group has also shown Blackcurrant cordial to inhibit bacterial
growth.2 Measurements of bacterial growth appear to be subjective visual measurements and there is no mention
of whether those assessing the bacterial growth are blinded to whether or not the growth media contained juice or
cordial.
Though these in vitro studies suggest that there may be a basis for the idea, our search found no comparative
studies examining the use of raspberry juice or raspberry cordial in the prevention or treatment of gastroenteritis in humans.