How's this for preventative medicine?: Ingesting bacteria may help to prevent infections.

Researchers at Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, Neb., recently demonstrated that regular doses of probiotic bacteria given to hospital patients on mechanical ventilators resulted in fewer cases of pneumonia. The findings were published online June 3 in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Probiotics, live microorganisms thought to provide a health benefit when consumed in sufficient amounts, are frequently used to mitigate a variety of conditions, including digestive disorders such as antibiotic-associated diarrhea, lactose intolerance and irritable bowel syndrome. Scientific evidence to back many claims, however, is often preliminary at best or lacking entirely. The new study demonstrates that one strain of so-called beneficial bacteria can prevent pneumonia in some patients, and may be useful for the prevention of hospital-acquired infections.

Lee Morrow, an associate professor of medicine at Creighton and lead author of the study, along with his colleagues administered a solution containing the human intestinal probiotic bacteria, Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG or a placebo to 138 critically ill patients on ventilators. The study was designed so that neither patients nor care providers knew which group received probiotics. The patients received treatment twice daily and were monitored routinely for the presence of pneumonia-causing pathogens. The researchers observed that probiotic treatment reduced the number of cases of pneumonia by nearly half.

"We chose to study probiotics in this context because ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is increasingly caused by pathogens associated with antimicrobial resistance, and the supply of novel antibiotics is essentially nonexistent for the foreseeable future," Morrow said in a prepared statement.

Pneumonia affects nearly 30 percent of patients on ventilators; it can result when microorganisms from the mouth or ventilator equipment are inhaled into the lungs. In addition to causing health complications for individuals who are already critically ill, VAP results in higher health care costs.

"This is an enormous accomplishment," says Donald Craven, a physician at the Lahey Clinic Medical Center in Burlington, Mass., who was not involved in the study. The results "hold promise for trying to prevent an infection that has serious morbidity, mortality and is a major factor for hospital costs that we're trying to contain," he adds.

Patients receiving probiotics were also less likely to develop diarrhea caused by Clostridium difficile, a common bacterium found in health care venues, and required less antibiotic treatment when C. difficile infections occurred. No side effects were associated with either the placebo or probiotic treatment.

In support of the current findings, a recent systematic review of previous studies of the use of various probiotic strains suggested that probiotics may reduce VAP by 39 percent. The mechanism by which probiotics prevent pneumonia, however, remains unresolved. Some evidence suggests that probiotics may modulate the immune system to help it to ward off pathogens. Future studies will be necessary to identify the precise mechanism as well as the optimal dose and strain of probiotics for specific conditions.

6 Comments

1. 1. manitouphotos 01:25 AM 6/18/10

   That's quite interesting; I hope the use of probiotics proves to be affective and becomes a part of hospital patients' regimen who are at risk for pneumonia and C. difficile. When my father was in the hospital recovering from a severe stroke, he contracted both pneumonia (VAP) and C. difficile and it made for a more difficult recovery, especially slowing his progress in his physical therapy sessions. It also made it harder for my family because he was already suffering from the affects of the stroke and contraction of these diseases made things much worse.
   
   It's certainly nice to see that a natural approach is being taken to try and curb these diseases. If it proves to be affective, the use of probiotics plus proper patient care (C. difficile transfers from one patient to another usually when a nurse or physician doesn't properly clean up after handling any patient bathroom needs) could potentially eradicate at least a couple of the many issues one faces when spending time in a hospital. Thanks for posting this story!

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

2. 2. jgrosay 03:52 PM 6/18/10

   However, there are some published cases of harmful side effects, and even some deaths from probiotics!

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

3. 3. Carlton22 09:32 AM 6/22/10

   It is about time that common sense return to the medical community. Antibiotics kill indiscriminately both the bad and the good. A well balanced mix of probiotics return the good flora to the gut that is necessary for a healthy and balanced digestive system. The more the better.
   
   When the good bacteria of the gut are killed off it allows opportunistic organisms such as yeasts to over run the body and create a toxic and acidic environment. The toxins given off by yeasts cause the body to react and mimic many other diseases and conditions making a diagnoses difficult if not impossible. In an attempt to "treat" these other conditions the body environment can then become even more toxic and out of balance.
   
   It would not surprise me to find that part of the "mechanism" to restoring health (along with controlling yeasts and other unfriendly bacteria) was the normalization of the body pH to a slightly alkaline condition (7.2-7.4). The importance of using sodium bicarbonate to normalize body pH should not be overlooked either.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

4. 4. abutler crt 10:37 AM 6/22/10

   I agree with Carlton 22 on the sodium bicarbonate usage. Not enough physicians look at the importance of using sodium bicarbonate to normalize the bodies pH. It is not on ventilation changes that can help that but also sometimes that is a needed additive.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

5. 5. samherbs 10:38 AM 6/22/10

   The authors should be cautious in giving probiotics to severely immunocompromised patients with pneumonia in the ICU. There were several studies published that probiotics could do more harm in patients with depressed immune systems. Given the low number of participants involved in this article, further studies should be done. However, it would be worth mentioning that probiotics are given to healthy patients to improve health condition.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

6. 6. Wayne Williamson 08:21 PM 6/22/10

   cool discovery...with the above mentioned cautions....never heard of probiotics before....

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this