Prevention rather than treatment

Studies show that the effect is particularly evident in women with recurrent urinary tract infections. The number of new infections can decrease with regular consumption. According to a Cochrane review, the risk of recurrent infections is reduced by about 25–30% in women; the effect appears to be slightly stronger in children. Some groups, such as pregnant women and nursing home residents, did not benefit.
In cases of acute bladder infections, there is hardly any positive effect. Once the infection has taken hold, the mechanism simply comes too late—the bacteria have already attached themselves to the mucous membrane and are multiplying.

What’s Behind the Effect

According to studies, simply drinking more water alone can significantly reduce the number of recurrent urinary tract infections. However, the effect of cranberries is not about “flushing,” but rather the active compounds contained in the plant: proanthocyanidins (PACs), which make it difficult for bacteria to attach to the bladder lining. E. coli, the most common cause of urinary tract infections, relies on this adhesion. Without it, it becomes significantly harder for the bacteria to establish themselves in the urinary tract.

Juice, capsules, or extract—and how much, exactly?

And how and in what quantity is it best to take cranberry? There is no standard dosage recommendation. Studies often use about 36 mg of proanthocyanidins per day. It is not possible to give a general figure for how much juice is needed, as the proanthocyanidin content varies significantly depending on the product. When taking dietary supplements, you should pay attention to the information regarding PAC content.

Williams G et al. Cranberries for preventing urinary tract infections. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2023;4(4):CD001321.

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• Against toothache and cavities: “Rinse your mouth with fresh morning urine for at least three minutes and keep it in the oral cavity as long as possible.”
• For middle ear infections: “Let urine run into the ear canal and leave it there for 15 minutes.”
• For skin impurities or minor burns: “In the morning, after your normal facial cleansing, wash your face with concentrated morning urine and do not rinse it off for as long as possible.”

Behind such recommendations lies a surprisingly persistent myth: urine is a natural disinfectant. In fact, it was already used for this purpose in ancient and medieval medicine.

Overcoming the disgust — is it worth it?

The idea that urine is sterile is now considered outdated. Modern microbiological studies show that the human urinary tract does indeed have a bacterial colonization. The supposed antiseptic thus turns out to be simply a bodily fluid which—like many others—can contain microorganisms and therefore has little place near wounds.

In addition, urine consists mostly of water, along with a small percentage of electrolytes and metabolic waste products that the body is actively trying to eliminate. There is no convincing mechanism for an antiseptic effect.

If it burns, it must work against bacteria?

The fact that urine can sting on injured skin is sometimes interpreted as evidence of a “disinfecting effect.” In reality, this is more likely due to its salt concentration and slightly acidic pH.

In short: urine can sting—but not for the same reasons as an antiseptic, rather for roughly the same reasons as saltwater on an abrasion.

No — urine is not a disinfectant

Today, we have clean water, simple wound care, and sterile dressings. Urine-based applications therefore seem about as advisable as some other classics of historical medicine: bloodletting for fever, mercury treatments for syphilis, or leeches for nearly everything.

Nevertheless, this old myth has still not been completely eradicated.

Have you ever come across advice like this?

Morand A et al. Human Bacterial Repertoire of the Urinary Tract: a Potential Paradigm Shift. J Clin Microbiol. 2019 Feb 27;57(3):e00675-18.

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Same diet.

Same training volume.

Different results:

He loses four kilos. She loses her patience. But what are the reasons for this “gender weight gap”?

Muscle mass: The starting point is not identical

On average, men have around 10–15% more fat-free mass than women of the same age. The share of skeletal muscle is about 40–45% of body weight in men, and more like 30–35% in women. More muscle mass, however, also means a higher basal metabolic rate: One kilogram of fat-free mass burns about 13–15 kcal per day at rest.

• In practice, this often results in a daily energy expenditure that is about 100–300 kcal higher for men.

Energy regulation: Earlier counter-regulation

In women, hormonal regulation reacts more sensitively to energy deficits. The level of the satiety hormone leptin can drop by 30–50% even with moderate restriction, while the hunger hormone ghrelin increases. At the same time, adaptive thermogenesis reduces energy expenditure by 5–15%.

• A woman’s body therefore dampens expenditure earlier and more consistently.

Cycle: Weight is not a fixed reference value

Weight fluctuations of 1–2 kg within a cycle are physiological. In the luteal phase, basal metabolic rate increases by 2–10%, while at the same time, in many women spontaneous energy intake increases by 90–500 kcal per day. Progesterone additionally promotes fluid retention.

• Short-term scale values therefore often show the hormonal dynamics — not actual fat change.

Menopause: When distribution changes

With menopause, visceral fat volume increases by around 40–60%, while muscle mass decreases significantly — even if total body weight increases only moderately.

• On the one hand, visceral fat is metabolically active and promotes insulin resistance, inflammatory processes and cardiovascular risk. On the other hand, with less muscle mass, resting energy expenditure can be around 100–200 kcal per day lower.

So what is especially important for women

• Strength training + sufficient protein: 2–3×/week progressive training; 1.6–2.0 g protein/kg BW, to secure muscle mass and basal metabolic rate
• Moderate calorie deficit: about 300–500 kcal instead of crash diet
• Plan for cycle & life stage: 1–2 kg cyclical fluctuations are physiological; postmenopausal, focus more on waist circumference, strength values and metabolic markers)

What do you think: Do weight-loss strategies sufficiently take sex differences into account?

Szeliga A et al. The Impact of the Menopausal Transition on Body Composition and Abdominal Fat Redistribution. J Clin Med. 2026 Jan 16;15(2):740.

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What makes the difference in practice

For this to actually work, the way you do it matters. If your nose is blocked, it makes sense to use a decongestant nasal spray or drops before doing the rinse. For the irrigation, use about 150–250 ml of isotonic saline solution per nostril. The simplest option is pre-portioned nasal rinse salts from a pharmacy or drugstore; you can also get suitable nasal douches or squeeze bottles there. Alternatively, you can mix the solution yourself (about 9 g of salt per 1 liter of water). The water is important: ideally sterile or boiled and then cooled to lukewarm. Lean your head slightly forward over the sink, keep your mouth open, and continue breathing calmly so the nasal secretions can drain properly. Forceful nose blowing is counterproductive because it stresses the mucosa and can push fluid into the sinuses or the middle ear. So it’s better to blow your nose gently, one nostril at a time.

Unspectacular, but effective

The whole procedure isn’t particularly elegant, but it works. Nasal irrigation can be used as often as needed. Symptoms usually improve noticeably after just a few days. Sea salt nasal sprays do not replace irrigation because they simply lack the necessary volume.

Hygiene also determines how useful it is: prepare the solution fresh, clean the irrigation device regularly, and let it dry thoroughly. When used correctly, nasal irrigation is a simple, inexpensive addition to symptomatic therapy – and a good example of how a seemingly unspectacular home remedy can turn out to be surprisingly evidence-based on closer inspection.

Pecoraro L, Di Muri E, Lezzi G, Picciolo S, De Musso M, Piazza M, Bosoni M, Indrio F. Nasal Irrigations: A 360-Degree View in Clinical Practice. Medicina (Kaunas). 2025 Aug 1;61(8):1402.

By the way: This text is part of our series “Naturally effective?”. In it, we take a close look at home remedies and similar approaches – focusing on what makes physiological sense and has at least a bit of scientific backing.

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The focus is shifting away from individual workouts…

… toward overall daily activity.

A 40-minute jog in the morning, then proudly off to the office – followed by eight hours of sitting. Many people consider this a success, even though their step counter may still show less total movement than on a day filled with small errands, stairs, and “just” a walk.

Everyday exercise, short walks, or simply spending less time sitting often contribute more to the overall balance than isolated intense sessions. But exercise not only changes daily activity—it also changes how the body responds to training.

Strength training changes the body – even without weight loss.

Fat mass can decrease, muscle mass can increase.

Dwayne Johnson weighed around 120 kilograms in his action roles – your office-working neighbor at the same weight would likely present a very different physique and fitness level.

The number on the scale may stay stable while function, posture, and metabolic markers improve. Progress, therefore, isn’t defined by weight alone.

When not only the how much but also the how is decisive, the focus automatically shifts to training intensity.

More intensity is not automatically better.

Current discussions emphasize sustainability over extreme programs.

A workout can feel great—until the next day when muscle soreness sets in and suddenly every staircase is avoided. If you end up asking your partner to take out the trash instead, that session may have been harder than what makes sense long term.

Routines that can be permanently integrated into everyday life are more effective in the long term than short bursts of extreme effort.

The old question used to be: How hard was the workout?

Today, it’s more like: How active was the day overall?

Dog owners, by the way, meet physical activity recommendations significantly more often than people without dogs. On gray, rainy days they still go outside — not because they’re more motivated, but because daily life demands it.

So — what ideas do you have?

Zablan K, Melvin G, Hayley A. Dog ownership, physical activity, loneliness and mental health: a comparison of older adult and younger adult companion animal owners. BMC Psychol. 2024 Nov 1;12(1):618.

Dorling JL, Apolzan JW, Johannsen NM, Thomas DM, Höchsmann C, Hsia DS, Martin CK. Exercise-induced Changes in Central Adiposity During an RCT: Effect of Exercise Dose and Associations With Compensation. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2024 Feb 20;109(3):e997-e10

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Misconception 1: Weight is a valid marker for therapeutic success.

Body weight is easy to measure, but it says little about fat distribution, insulin sensitivity, inflammatory status, or cardiometabolic risk. Numerous interventions improve precisely these parameters without causing any significant change on the scales. If success is measured solely in terms of weight, relevant health effects remain invisible – and effective measures are mistakenly considered to have failed.

Misconception 2: More effort leads to more weight loss.

This assumption sounds plausible, but often does not stand up in practice. An energy deficit triggers a physiological counter-regulation: resting energy expenditure decreases. At the same time, behavior and well-being change – those affected unconsciously move less outside of planned activities, for example by sitting more or moving less spontaneously. This compensates for part of the deficit. More effort therefore does not automatically lead to more weight loss.

Misconception 3: Losing weight is primarily a behavioral problem.

This view overestimates willpower and underestimates biology – and thus also the psychological strain. Studies show that the body actively regulates weight and fat mass. Hunger, energy consumption, and storage adapt to the nutritional situation, regardless of motivation, insight, or good intentions. For many affected individuals, a lack of success therefore feels like personal failure, even though it is a biological reaction.

Does this sound familiar from your own experience?

Three errors in thinking, many disappointed expectations. In the following articles, we classify these findings based on evidence.

Müller MJ, Bosy-Westphal A. Adaptive thermogenesis with weight loss in humans. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2013;21(2):218–228.

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The metBMI is not based on body measurements, but on an AI-supported model of blood metabolites. It was developed by researchers at the Universities of Leipzig and Gothenburg. The starting point is a known weakness of the BMI: up to 30% of people of normal weight already have metabolic disorders, whereas some overweight people remain metabolically normal. The BMI does not capture the functional quality of adipose tissue.

The new index is the result of a study published in Nature Medicine involving almost 2,000 participants, in which extensive multi-omics data was analysed. From over 1,000 metabolites, the authors identified a clinically manageable panel of 66 markers that accurately reflect obesity-related dysfunctions. An elevated metBMI was associated with a two- to five-fold higher risk of metabolic fatty liver, type 2 diabetes, visceral fat accumulation, insulin resistance and systemic inflammation – regardless of actual BMI. In addition, individuals with high metBMI lost around 30% less weight after bariatric surgery, suggesting metabolic ‘therapy resistance’.

Particularly exciting is the link with the gut microbiome: as metBMI increased, the diversity of gut bacteria decreased, as did their ability to produce protective short-chain fatty acids such as butyrate – a possible mechanistic link between obesity, chronic inflammation and insulin resistance.

What does this mean in practice? While the Body Roundness Index (BRI), Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WHR) and Waist-to-Height Ratio (WtHR) primarily quantify fat distribution, metBMI addresses the biological quality of adipose tissue. It could help to identify high-risk patients earlier, personalise treatment decisions and break the ‘weight equals risk’ paradigm. The scales remain important – but they now have metabolic competition.

Chakaroun RM et al. Multi-omic definition of metabolic obesity through adipose tissue-microbiome interactions. Nat Med. Published online 2 January 2026.

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Were you hosting international guests at the turn of the year? If so, you may have noticed how many people’s school English suddenly improves after the first or second glass of sparkling wine. People who would normally internally correct every English sentence several times suddenly speak fluently, confidently and audibly more relaxed.

What sounds like a party anecdote is actually a well-documented phenomenon – and in 2025, the topic even caught the attention of the Ig Nobel Prize Committee: The Ig Nobel Prize, which honours research that ‘first makes people laugh and then makes them think,’ last year recognised a study on precisely this effect, interestingly in the ‘Peace’ category . The Dutch study shows that acute alcohol consumption can, under certain conditions, improve the ability to speak a foreign language. Not just a feeling, not anecdotal, but measurable.

Uninhibited by alcohol

This is explicitly not about more vocabulary or better grammar. The study, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology in 2018, examined speech inhibition. In other words, that inner control mechanism that permanently slows down many foreign language learners because they check every sentence for mistakes in advance.

After moderate alcohol consumption, Dutch test subjects spoke – from the outside perspective – more fluently and comprehensibly in English in an experiment, without considering themselves to be better. It was not about conceit, but about effect.

The reason: alcohol lowers inhibitions, dampens perfectionism and suppresses the fear of making mistakes. Conversation gains space – and the obligatory ‘Sorry for my bad English’ that some people use simply disappears.

However, be careful: what improves foreign language use does not apply to the native language. As another Dutch study shows, pronunciation deteriorates measurably with increasing blood alcohol content. Native language expression is usually not influenced by linguistic uncertainties.

So if you happen to meet someone whose English clearly improves after a few drinks, it’s not a New Year’s miracle or any other kind of miracle. It’s evidence-based.

The 2025 IG Nobel Prize winners

Renner F et al. Dutch courage? Effects of acute alcohol consumption on self-ratings and observer ratings of foreign language skills. J Psychopharmacol. 2018

Offrede TF et al. The Impact of Alcohol on L1 versus L2. Lang Speech. 2021

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In practice, it looks like this:

The test run starts off well thought out. We write a detailed prompt, define the target audience, topic, tone, and length. Of course, we put a lot of effort into this, because we wanted to be able to continue working with the results.

Then we wait. Until now, neither the statements nor the sources provided by the AI could be trusted. Our eager colleague ChatGTP likes to make things up to make herself look better. This shouldn’t happen anymore in the Thinking mode. We are excited to see the result. But then what happens is

Silence. Abort. End.

Either the text breaks off in the middle or, even better, nothing appears—Thinking Mode thinks and thinks, and in the end, there is nothing. No sentence, no fragment. And even the sentence “Please finish writing this text” doesn’t work. Because the beginning has long since vanished into virtual fog.

Why the thinking mode sometimes “strays”

In theory, the thinking mode is a blessing, because it actually follows instructions such as “don’t estimate the word count, just count” or “don’t interpret the results, just reproduce what is actually there.” The problem: additional “thinking work” requires resources. It costs computing time, and on top of that, each answer has a limited “word budget” (number of tokens). If this budget is exceeded or the calculation takes too long, it’s game over – the technology says, “Time’s up.”

For us, this feels like a download that stops at 98%—painful for our time budget, emotionally… let’s say: not good for our blood pressure.

Avoiding blackout experiences

At the end of the day, we’ve at least made some progress with this:

• Outline first, text later: First, just create a structure: headings, subchapters, rough bullet points.
• Formulate in stages: Each section gets its own prompt – like individual building blocks for layout and approval. This way, the entire text can’t disappear before anything even lands on the screen.
• Limit the mental effort: Don’t make too many demands at once. What can be done one after the other should also be done one after the other. Formulate as “foolproof” as possible and, if necessary, simply ask the AI itself why it did something a certain way. At least it helps for the future…

ChatGPT is not an author, but a structural aid, a wording machine, or a source of ideas for variations, subheadings, and introductions. What it definitely does not replace: a knowledgeable author. In any case, we prefer to let AI continue to do the smaller auxiliary tasks – that saves time and doesn’t waste it.

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From individual diseases to the big picture

Previous models have mostly focused on a single disease – such as cardiovascular risk or genetic predispositions for cancer. Delphi-2M thinks bigger: it has been trained with data sets from more than two million people, combines genetic, clinical and demographic information, and uses this to calculate probabilities for a wide variety of clinical pictures. At its core, it is a so-called Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) model – an algorithm that recognises patterns and makes predictions based on them.

Delphi-2M performed remarkably well in tests: for diseases with clear progression patterns, such as certain types of cancer or heart attacks, the model achieved higher accuracy than specialised individual models in some cases. It was more difficult with psychiatric disorders, pregnancy complications or rare conditions, where the progression is more complex and the data available is more scarce.

Opportunities and pitfalls

Experts are impressed – but also cautious. Prof. Robert Ranisch (University of Potsdam) sees Delphi-2M as ‘an impressive example of the potential of generative AI in health research’. But he warns that bias, discrimination and the responsible handling of sensitive health data remain key challenges.

The ethical dimension is also under discussion: no one should be confronted with a personal risk analysis without having given their consent. The right not to know must be preserved, as must data protection.

But it’s not just about predictions. As Carsten Marr from the Helmholtz Centre in Munich points out: ‘What is particularly exciting is the discovery of previously unknown correlations between diseases – connections that we might otherwise never have recognised.’

AI oracle or tool?

The average AUC (area under the curve, a measure of the performance of a classification model) of 0.76 shows that For individual patients, Delphi-2M is not yet a precise oracle. But as a research tool and basis for prevention strategies, it has enormous potential.

Ultimately, Delphi-2M remains what its name promises – a tool that allows us to look into the future, but not a machine of destiny. How we deal with these insights is less a question of technology than one of ethics.

Or, as Ranisch puts it: ‘Such predictions are not verdicts of fate – but valuable pointers for prevention and therapy.’

Shmatko, A et al. Learning the natural history of human disease with generative transformers. Nature (2025).

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