We discussed the lay article from Newsweek, Friendly Infections, about probiotics in yogart and other fermented dairy products being helpful for our digestive tracts to include people with IBD. While this article simply stated the author's opinion on the matter of probiotics and bacterial flora being helpful to our digestive tracts, it had no research referenced.
In the British Society for Immunology there was an article published about probiotics in IBD, Anti-inflammatory effects of probiotic yogurt in inflammatory bowel disease patients. In this article they researched the effects of probiotics on T cells, monocytes and DC, serum and stool cytokines. The results of this study showed that consumption of the probiotic yogurt resulted in increased levels of CD4+ CD25+ T-reg cells in the peripheral blood of IBD patients. Looking at a short term yogurt consumption of yogurt supplemented with probiotics, Lactobacillus strains GR-1 and RC-14 promoted the desirable anti-inflammatory environment in peripheral blood of IBD patients and showed no ill effects. They went over the methods and results in depth and their conclusion was that further research still needed to be conducted but that there were many potential applications of the nutritional supplement.
One of the applications they felt was a good candidate are HIV/AIDs patients with chronic diarrhea and in a preliminary study of its use the patients showed a decline in diarrhea within 2 days. Do you think that we should all consumed yogurt or other producted with probiotics to help our digestive systems? Do you think that having manufactured increased probiotics in yogurts could be a potential widespread treatment for IBD?
Below is the URL to the article. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/ppmc/articles/PMC2219330/
I really liked this article and from my experiences I believe pro-biotics can work wonders. I went to Nepal for a month last summer and someone had recommended I take pro-biotics for two weeks before I leave. I did and when I got there I was only sick if I drank to much Chi Tea. Many others in the house (12 other volunteers from around the US and world) was sick after almost every meal for a good two weeks. How I understood it was that was about how long it took for their bodies to get used to the different bacteria.
ReplyDeleteIf bacteria is being destroyed in any way in your stomach, with antibiotics, I am sure HIV/AIDS, chemo, and many other diseases and treatments then it would make sense that you should be putting that good bacteria back into your stomach. So I say yes to your proposed questions. I think pro-biotics are a good way, with little Their have been some bad side effects from taking probiotic pills, but if yogurt is being used I think we would have many more happy tummies in the US.
Megan,
ReplyDeleteI think your comment was very helpful since you have first hand experience! I know that with any pill there can be side effects and let's face it there can be to yogurt also but probably less as our systems know how to break down yogurt more efficently than pills. However, I think that if they were to sell or have higher amount of probiotics in yogurt for people who are going through treatments or have diseases that inflammatory effects on the bowels that they might find some relief. I think that your absolutely right that if we travel to some place new if we were to better prepare our bodies for the change by increasing the amount of flora in our systems it would help people not be as sick.
This is a very interesting topic to blog about! I have heard before that yogurt is helpful for your digestive system, but I never knew about the live and active cultures. When I got home from class on Monday I went straight to my refrigerator and pulled out my yummy strawberry kiwi yoplait yogurt and indeed it had the live and active cultures stamp right on the front! It is good that there is a way to put good bacteria back into our stomachs to keep ourselves healthy!
ReplyDeleteDiana,
ReplyDeleteIt is an interesting topic, especially as we discussed in class Monday that as Americans we are so afraid of germs and bacteria it is shocking that there is a food that we still have active cultures and bacteria in them. I think it is a great way to put back healthy and helpful bacteria and flora into our digestive systems.
Hello all, I agree that this is an interesting topic to talk about, as I think this was one of the most interactive discussions that we had in class because so many of us have had experiences with this when we are traveling. It seems that probiotics (yogurts or pill forms) have great effects that work rapidly and effectively. I have first hand experience with this. When I was in Guatemala over the summer my body much like every other American was having a hard time adjusting to the new bacteria that I was ingesting with every meal. I got so sick that the clinic I was working in gave me one of the most powerful anti-bacterial medications they had because there was no other choice. This was good for the most part, but because the anti-bacterial was so strong ,along with wiping out the bacterial infection I had it also got rid of my good bacterial flora. So now that I was better I was more susceptible to being sick, and the suggestion from the head physician was none other than to eat yogurt to help me restore my bacterial flora. I took the advice and luckily I did not get sick the rest of the trip. So in saying that, I agree that probiotics should be apart of our regular diets, however I don't think that probiotics themselves are going to end up being a main treatment for IBD, but they could relieve some symptoms!
ReplyDeleteThe idea of putting friendly bacteria in your body sounds like it would be beneficial, but how much effect does it really have. I did some research on the benefits of eating live and active cultures and found that there are some issues with these probiotic strains. Their are thousands of probiotic strains and only a few have been clinically tested, and every person responds differently to different strains. So unless you know which strain/strains benefit your body, and which product offers that strain, taking probiotics might not be very beneficial after all.
ReplyDeleteAfter I read the interesting article and the comments, I wondered what if we use clinically tested probiotics to prevent or treat cholera. I did some research to see if any study has been done or is in progress on this matter. Luckily I found some research studies that have been done. Their approach was to mimic the host cells receptors for cholera toxin on the surface of harmless probiotic that can survive in the gut. I think this could be a considerable potential for prevention of cholera than treatment. If researcher s could come up with a recombinant probiotic for cholera toxin, then they can administer it to people before they get the disease.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the World Health Organization, there have been a total of 3245 cases of cholera from May 25 to June 16 in only one city in Afghanistan. Imagine how significant this recombinant probiotic could be in saving people’s lives in third world countries.
In the field of pediatric gasrtoenterology, probiotics are probably the single hottest topic right now. The microbiome ( resident bacteria) of the intestine are being heavily studied in health and disease states. Probably the best evidence in the literature right now are for
ReplyDelete1)preventing NEC (necrotizing enterocolitis) a nasty inflammatory intestinal condition found in preterm infants that can destroy the colon
2) preventing antibiotic associated diarrhea
3) helping prevent/treat constipation and IBS
4) The best evidence in IBD is in ulcerative colitis, either in treating/preventing pouchitis (inflammation in patients after a colectomy)and recently in helping put UC in remission. The data in Crohns is disappointing.
5) there is promising evidence that they can be used in kids to prevent allergies and eczema.
In the newborn, probiotics are essentil for development of mucosal immunity- production of IgA, defensins, maintenance of tight junctions of intestinal epithelium, mucin production, and shifting from a Th2 predominant to balanced Th2-Th1 system via Treg stimulation. Excessive antibiotics in the first years of life predisposes to allergies and potentially Crohns/UC in later life. Disruption of the normal bacteria at any stage may predispose to disease.
PubMed VSL#3, or bifidobacteria for some interesting studies. Saccharomyces boulardii is a yeast with promising therapeutic potential as well.
You can get VSL#3 at Sam's and Costco, and there are some good blends at Vitamin stores Like Jarrow Dophilus. I would not recommend plain lactobacillus acidophilus as there is less evidence of effectiveness for this single strain.
Good reviews by Gareau et al in Nature reviews gastroenterology and hepatology, and Ruemmele et al in JPGN 2009