Probiotics supplement may not work, even have side effects: study

Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-07 00:27:00|Editor: Mu Xuequan
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WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- A study published on Thursday in the journal Cell showed that the probiotics supplements many people used to boost digestive health may not work and taking them to counterbalance antibiotics could delay the return of normal gut bacteria and gut gene expression.

The researchers measured gut colonization directly instead of using patient's excrement as a proxy for microbe activity in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract.

In the first study, 25 human volunteers underwent upper endoscopies and colonoscopies to sample their baseline microbiome in regions of the gut. Among them, 15 of those volunteers were then divided into two groups.

The first group consumed generic probiotic strains, while the second was administered a placebo. Both groups then underwent a second round of upper endoscopies and colonoscopies to assess their internal response before being followed for another two months.

The scientists discovered that the probiotics successfully colonized the GI tracts of some people, called the "persisters," while the gut microbiomes of "resisters" expelled them.

"Surprisingly, we saw that many healthy volunteers were actually resistant in that the probiotics couldn't colonize their GI tracts. This suggests that probiotics should not be universally given as a one-size-fits-all supplement," said the paper's senior author Eran Elinav, an immunologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

In the second study, the researchers questioned whether patients should be taking probiotics to counter the effects of antibiotics, as they are often told to do in order to repopulate the gut microbiota after it's cleared by antibiotic treatment.

Twenty-one volunteers were given a course of antibiotics and then randomly assigned to one of three groups. The first was a "watch-and-wait" group that let their microbiome recover on its own. The second group was administered the same generic probiotics used in the first study.

The third group was treated with an autologous fecal microbiome transplant (aFMT) made up of their own bacteria that had been collected before giving them the antibiotic.

After the antibiotics had cleared the way, the standard probiotics could easily colonize the gut of everyone in the second group, but this probiotic colonization prevented the host's normal microbiome and gut gene expression profile from returning to their normal state for months afterward.

In contrast, the aFMT resulted in the third group's native gut microbiome and gene program returning to normal within days.

"Contrary to the current dogma that probiotics are harmless and benefit everyone, these results reveal a new potential adverse side effect of probiotic use with antibiotics that might even bring long-term consequences," said Elinav.

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