Under certain circumstances probiotics can actually be harmful and cause secondary infections. The authors cautioned that their preliminary findings apply only to the carefully monitored study population, and should not be generalized to all hospital patients. Furthermore, the results need to be replicated by research at other care facilities, ideally using a diversity of patient populations.

Nevertheless, Morrow and colleagues suggest that probiotic treatment could be a novel, inexpensive, nonantibiotic approach to preventing secondary infections. Using Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG to prevent pneumonia "appears safe and efficacious in a select population of patients," the authors concluded.

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!

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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