probiotics question

[Daffodil]

Absolutely! Yes. Take them several times a day, just not within 2 hours before or after taking the antibiotic. Also eat lots of yogurt (with active bacteria) and kefir.

thanks, tiger. I cant eat yogurt because I am not supposed to have whey protein (though I have milk in my tea cuz I cannot resist it).

I will make a schedule and restart probiotics tomorrow. I used to take them daily but somehow stopped I don't know why.

thanks for the advice, everyone!

xoxox

 

[jjxx]

Although you are diminishing their effectiveness, I can't imagine a time when you would need them more. Contrary to what I've heard previously, taking probiotics WITH meals is actually more effective.

Perhaps that would help you "turn the tide".

Intriguing claim! What makes you think so?

 

[IThinkImTurningJapanese]

Intriguing claim! What makes you think so?

I assume you are referring to "probiotics WITH meals", the blue letters are actually a clickable link.

I was surprised by this myself. I was taught by Physicians to take probiotics on an empty stomach, but recent research has shown that food dilutes stomach acid and protects microbes.

 

[keenly]

I'm not sure there is any real evidence to show they work at all. The theory is great but there is currently poor methods for capturing what's going on so it really comes down to subjective opinion. Stool tests, biochemical markers (such as oat) and artificial gut models do not reflect what's actually going on in terms of populations in the small and large intestine and so are open to a lot of interpretation. We are bombarded by information but a lot of it is fake. This area is so complex it's like mapping the effect of a butterfly population in Africa and its affect on kangaroo populations in Australia. This is way more complicated than is portrayed by many advocates of probiotics.

This lack of scientific evidence has led to the EU removing permitted product claims for all probiotics. I would save your money if I were you unless you can see a marked difference either way that isn't an affect of diet or other factors.

No.

That is not true at all. The agenda has been put in play years before. The goal is to decimate the natural supplement market, like in Canada and other places. All pushed by Big Pharma. We have been fighting this for years.

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

No.

That is not true at all. The agenda has been put in play years before. The goal is to decimate the natural supplement market, like in Canada and other places. All pushed by Big Pharma. We have been fighting this for years.

I don't think that the EU legislation is a conspiracy theory .....its more about there not being enough scientific evidence to support the health claims.

It is true that the EU did once support probiotic health claims in food labelling (such as yoghurt and probiotic drinks etc), but they withdrew claims on products marketed in the EU since it was subsequently found that there wasn't enough scientific evidence to support the beneficial claims made. There is now a ban on any health claim associated with probiotic cultures in food. I belive that Yakult and others challenged this ...unsuccessfully.

As it stands today, the EU position is that in the absence of evidence, any on pack health claim is not permitted since to do so would be misleading (I.e. Making money under false claims).

Just because companies that produce these products aren't " big pharma" doesn't mean they are allowed to carry out sloppy and misleading marketing. Small companies can be sharks too and the consumer needs protecting from these just as much as large companies.

We need more scientific research in the area of gut biome before any business large or small starts trying to turn a profit on health products in this area. Although intriguing, there just isn't enough evidence here yet to even know what normal looks like, let alone what bad is and good should be.

People trying these products are therefore trialing something that may or may not work, since there really isn't any proof. The companies supplying them don't care if they work after all as long as people keep buying into it.

 

[Timaca]

@Azriel ~ What probiotic do you take? And how long before you noticed the rosacea going away? (I have a bit of that as well, so that is why I ask!)

I currently take 2 different probiotics, The Renew Life Audlt 50+ probiotic with 6 bifido strains and the NOW Clinical GI Probiotic. I take both of them in the same day BUT I open the capsules, put the contents in a small plastic cup with a lid, and take just a small amount each day. So one capsule will last me anywhere from 5 to 7 days.

I started with the NOW probiotic and that really did help some of my GI pain, but I have been having heartburn for quite some time and the probiotic didn't seem to help that. So I added in the Renew Life probiotic. It does seem to be helping the heartburn a bit. It's not gone yet, but it isn't worse either, so I will give them a bit more time. However, if someone has a solution for heartburn (probiotic or otherwise) let me know!

Best,

 

[IThinkImTurningJapanese]

People trying these products are therefore trialing something that may or may not work, since there really isn't any proof. The companies supplying them don't care if they work after all as long as people keep buying into it.

There is no shortage of proof, have a look at this.

Current level of consensus on probiotic science

The present paper summarizes the consensus views of a group of 9 European clinicians and scientists on the current state of scientific knowledge on probiotics, covering those areas where there is substantial evidence for beneficial effects and those where the evidence base is poor or inconsistent. There was general agreement that probiotic effects were species and often strain specific. The experts agreed that some probiotics were effective in reducing the incidence and duration of rotavirus diarrhea in infants, antibiotic-associated diarrhea in adults and, for certain probiotics, Clostridium difficile infections. Some probiotics are associated with symptomatic improvements in irritable bowel syndrome and alleviation of digestive discomfort. Probiotics can reduce the frequency and severity of necrotizing enterocolitis in premature infants and have been shown to regulate intestinal immunity. Several other clinical effects of probiotics, including their role in inflammatory bowel disease, atopic dermatitis, respiratory or genito-urinary infections or H. pylori adjuvant treatment were thought promising but inconsistent.

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

There is no shortage of proof, have a look at this.

Current level of consensus on probiotic science

This appears to be one of the lobbying pieces to try and convince the EU to change its position. If you look at the date it seems to be just before manufacturers were told to remove claims from their labels. The extract below pretty much confirms that it is an opinion piece of 9 people who work with probiotics.

"This discussion and the consensus points are summarized in this report. This report does not intend to be a scientific review, yet rather a position paper about the existing ‘state of the art’ of probiotic science."

Unfortunately this didn't convince the EU panel to change its decision, and if you actually read it ...the points are quite scatty and don't provide a convincing and compelling argument, that probiotics provide a clear benefit that can be legislated for.

More over they are the opinions that there is a link "from their experience" rather than from a raft of extensive research. i haven't gone through any of the research links yet but I would imagine that there is a lot of self reporting going on, which immediately will have an enormous amount of bias in it, so those reports will be garbage in terms of evidence. Self reporting in food and wellbeing suffers far more bias than medical treatments due to the sensory nature of it.

Basically people will make causal links to the food they eat in error and by a high degree. This appears to be a defence mechanism that we have inherited but is not designed for such a wide and diverse set of foods in the modern world. You only have to look at the mistaken cases for allergy and food poisoning to get a scale of this; it can be as high as 90%. There are specific testing regimes to try and eliminate this bias in questionnaire design etc, but ultimately if you rely on this you are never going to have proof that will be convincing.

In any case this 9 person "consensus piece " did not convince the EU, and to be honest I can see why.

We need better research than this

 

[keenly]

I don't think that the EU legislation is a conspiracy theory .....its more about there not being enough scientific evidence to support the health claims.

It is true that the EU did once support probiotic health claims in food labelling (such as yoghurt and probiotic drinks etc), but they withdrew claims on products marketed in the EU since it was subsequently found that there wasn't enough scientific evidence to support the beneficial claims made. There is now a ban on any health claim associated with probiotic cultures in food. I belive that Yakult and others challenged this ...unsuccessfully.

As it stands today, the EU position is that in the absence of evidence, any on pack health claim is not permitted since to do so would be misleading (I.e. Making money under false claims).

Just because companies that produce these products aren't " big pharma" doesn't mean they are allowed to carry out sloppy and misleading marketing. Small companies can be sharks too and the consumer needs protecting from these just as much as large companies.

We need more scientific research in the area of gut biome before any business large or small starts trying to turn a profit on health products in this area. Although intriguing, there just isn't enough evidence here yet to even know what normal looks like, let alone what bad is and good should be.

People trying these products are therefore trialing something that may or may not work, since there really isn't any proof. The companies supplying them don't care if they work after all as long as people keep buying into it.

Are you not aware of what they are trying to do with vitamins and minerals? Are you not aware about what has happened to herbs?

Nothing theoretical, the proposals are being pushed by Pharmaceutical companies. That is an established fact.

https://www.consumersforhealthchoice.com/news/
http://anhinternational.org/campaign/freedom-health-choice/

My former MP even discussed this in Parliament. We have been fighting this for years.

The Canadian government, against the wishes of its its people and its Parliament, brought in a licensing system for ‘natural health products’ in 2004 which is so onerous, it has already caused a significant loss of products from health stores. It is estimated that some 20,000 products have already been lost.

Do you want that? Fight for your rights now.

 

[IThinkImTurningJapanese]

We need better research than this

Ask and you shall receive,

Yakult: a role in combating multi-drug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa?

Presence of extremely drug resistant metallo-beta-lactamase (MBL VIM) Pseudomonas aeruginosa in a patient presenting with 54% deep-dermal and full-thickness flame burns to her neck, chest, upper abdomen and upper limbs, appeared to coincide with wound breakdown and non-healing. This organism was also seen to colonise the patient's gastrointestinal tract, which was thought to act as a reservoir for re-infection of her wounds. Oral treatment with a probiotic drink (Yakult yoghurt) was commenced in order to alter gut flora. Two weeks after this regimen began, P. aeruginosa grown from wound swabs was seen to change from multi-drug resistant to multi-drug sensitive strains. This change persisted through to patient discharge home from hospital. The temporal relationship seen between commencement of once-daily probiotic and change of the organism from multi-drug resistant to multi-drug sensitive suggests that this may have been an effective intervention.

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

Ask and you shall receive,

Yakult: a role in combating multi-drug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa?

Hmm looks a bit anecdotal to me...one patient with burns ??? The EU legislation was put into force in 2012/13 so multi factorial blind or with placebo studies/ papers after this date might be worth focussing on. Anything before that date is deemed "insufficient". Perhaps there is a more recent study I've missed in the course of my work?

 

[IThinkImTurningJapanese]

Anything before that date is deemed "insufficient".

That's funny.

 

[IThinkImTurningJapanese]

Considerably before 2012 yet good evidence of the value of probiotics,

Inhibition of enteropathogens by Clostridium butyricum MIYAIRI 588

The inhibitory effect of Clostridium butyricum MIYAIRI 588 against various enteropathogens was investigated in mixed cultures. It was observed that C. butyricum M588 inhibited the growth of Vibrio cholerae O1, V. cholerae non-O1, Aeromonas hydrophila, and Shigella flexneri. Considering that the interaction between C. butyricum and Shigella is especially important because of their proliferation site in the lower intestine, further examinations were carried out on Shigella in particular. Results were as follows: 1) In BHI broth culture of Shigella, the pH of culture fluid went down to 5.2, but the growth of Shigella was not inhibited. 2) In the mixed culture of Shigella and C. butyricum, the growth of Shigella was inhibited, nevertheless the pH of the culture fluid was 5.6. 3) In the mixed culture with phosphate buffered BHI maintaining the pH higher than 6.0, the growth of Shigella was inhibited. 4) In case of pure culture of C. butyricum in BHI broth, the pH of culture fluid indicated 5.5, and Shigella failed to grow in the cell free culture supernatant. 5) The growth of Shigella was not inhibited in the culture supernatant when the pH was adjusted at 7.2. These results suggested that the inhibition of Shigella in the mixed culture with C. butyricum was not due to a single factor such as pH or fatty acid etc. but due to multifactors including live cells of C. butyricum.

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

Considerably before 2012 yet good evidence of the value of probiotics,

Inhibition of enteropathogens by Clostridium butyricum MIYAIRI 588

This appears to be an In vitro study performed outside of the human alimentary canal? Not compelling if so

Do you have access to the paper so I can check or just the abstract?

 

[IThinkImTurningJapanese]

@arewenearlythereyet Just the abstract.

In vivo if you must.

Clostridium butyricum MIYAIRI 588 shows antitumor effects by enhancing the release of TRAIL from neutrophils through MMP-8.

Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) intravesical therapy against superficial bladder cancer is one of the most successful immunotherapies in cancer, though the precise mechanism has not been clarified. Recent studies have demonstrated urinary tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) levels to be higher in BCG-responsive patients than non-responders and shown that polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) migrating to the bladder after BCG instillation release large amounts of TRAIL. To establish a safer and more effective intravesical therapy than BCG, we examined whether other bacteria induced similar effects. We stimulated PMNs or peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) with BCG or other bacteria, and then aliquots of the culture supernatants or cell lysates were assayed for TRAIL. We examined the signaling pathway regulating the release of TRAIL from PMNs and evaluated the antitumor effects of BCG or other bacteria in vitro and in vivo. We have found that Clostridium butyricum MIYAIRI 588 (CBM588) induces the release of endogenous TRAIL from PMNs as well as BCG. In addition, we have shown that matrix metalloproteinase 8 (MMP-8) is one of the key factors responsible for the release. Interestingly, TLR2/4 signaling pathway has been suggested to be important for the release of TRAIL by MMP-8. CBM588 has been proven to be as effective as BCG against cancer cells by inducing apoptosis in vivo as well as in vitro. Taken together, these results strongly suggest that CBM588 is promising for a safer and more effective therapy against bladder cancer.

 

[IThinkImTurningJapanese]

Do you have access to the paper so I can check

How's your Nihongo?

Mine is far from being able to translate technical papers.

Inhibition of Enteropathogens by Clostridium butyricum MIYAIRI 588

Here's something in English, in full, in vivo, and proof of probiotic benefits.

Edit; @Daffodil This answers your original question.

Efficacy of Clostridium butyricum preparation concomitantly with Helicobacter pylori eradication therapy in relation to changes in the intestinal microbiota

Antibiotic associated diarrhea due to human intestinal microbiota abnormalities is a side effect of H. pylori eradication therapy. We examined intestinal microbiota changes during H. pylori eradication therapy and the preventive effect of CBM588 as a probiotic agent. Nineteen patients with gastro-duodenal ulcer were randomly divided into three groups: group A (without probiotics), group B (with regular doses of CBM588) and group C (with double doses of CBM588). The incidence of diarrhea and soft stools during H. pylori eradication therapy was 43% in group A and 14% in group B, while none of the patients in group C reported diarrhea or soft stools. Both bacterial counts and detection rates of bifidobacteria and/or obligate anaerobe were decreased by eradication therapy. However, bacterial counts of obligate anaerobes in group C were significantly higher than in group A (P < 0.05). Additionally, during eradication therapy C. difficile toxin A was detected in both group A and group B but not in group C.

In conclusion, these results indicate that H. pylori eradication therapy induces antibiotic associated diarrhea due to abnormalities in intestinal microbiota and/or C. difficile. However, these side effects might be prevented by probiotics.

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

@arewenearlythereyet Just the abstract.

In vivo if you must.

Clostridium butyricum MIYAIRI 588 shows antitumor effects by enhancing the release of TRAIL from neutrophils through MMP-8.

This is an abstract.....it doesn't show what the studies were or the methodology or the discussion in context.

You can't draw conclusions from abstracts if you don't read the paper ...they are like mini adverts and often overstate or miss out key parts of the study as in this case.

In any case...this is a long way from proving that probiotics are better than regular food and goes nowhere to explain the long term benefits and more importantly if they are significant.

This isn't proof that probiotics have a significant effect on gut microflora? It just seems to be saying that one microbe has an interesting effect (although it's difficult to say without reading the paper the validity of the study)..this microbe may be there already or the effect inhibited by other gut microbes that produce gases etc. Stomach acid may inhibit growth of spores etc etc.

There are thousands of papers on the effects of individual microbes, their metabolism, method of growth etc etc, but what's missing is how they reproduce and survive in the gut amidst other populations and more importantly the method of delivering this in sustained way.

It's akin to someone in the 1700's saying ...I belive if we can build an aeroplane the benefits of international travel would be blah blah blah....but not showing how an aeroplane could be feasible to make and fly or proving that it's even possible.

Perhaps this paper holds a juicy reveal that they hide in the abstract, but I think it's unlikely.

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

How's your Nihongo?

Mine is far from being able to translate technical papers.

Inhibition of Enteropathogens by Clostridium butyricum MIYAIRI 588

Here's something in English, in full, in vivo, and proof of probiotic benefits.

Efficacy of Clostridium butyricum preparation concomitantly with Helicobacter pylori eradication therapy in relation to changes in the intestinal microbiota

My language skills do not extend very far I'm afraid. However the English translation shows that this study was not as significant as the headline makes out.

It was a study that on the face of it looks OK in design, testing a small number of subjects (19 patients), 7 of which were a control group.p who were being treated for h pylori infection. The probiotic was not used to irradiate h pylori ...the antibiotics and proton pump inhibitors did that. The study is looking at reducing dihorrea during and immediately after treatment via probiotics.

The results show that treatment with antibiotics and proton pump inhibitors in the treatment of h pylori infection can wipe out certain genus of bacteria (which was already known).

It also shows that a smaller number of patients (3 out of 7) have diahorrea as a symptom after treatment in the control group ( it's around 35% in other studies, so as you would expect)

When a probiotic preparation was given during the antibiotic treatment, only 1 out of 12 had diahorrea. The studies also looked into faecal bacterial genus which showed an affect on species was beneficial.

So reasonably positive for a very very small study showing that bacterial flora can improve if you take a probiotic whilst your stomach acid is reduced and you are taking a rigorous antibiotic treatment for H pylori. But don't forget that of the treatment group of 12 patients, only 4 would have been predicted to have diahorrea anyway so it's significance is based on an extremely small sample size .....4 patients

What would have been interesting to know is what happened to the control group after a week ( I.e is the benefit for longer than a week or does doing nothing right itself in the end as I suspect).

Although very interesting this doesn't really take us much forward in terms of taking probiotics for other ailments or for general health. Nor is it practical to take PPIs to reduce stomach acid on an ongoing basis so you can help a probiotic survive the acid conditions of the stomach. You are more likely to change your gut flora particularly in the upper gut if your stomach acid is low, so this would be counter productive. It also doesn't explain how taking these supplements differed from just normal food, which is the big bone of contention with these specialist probiotic supplements.

It's pretty much as I've said earlier in this thread ...there are interesting signs that there is an effect of gut microbiota on various health issues, but we know next to nothing about it at the moment.

Which is why we need a lot more studies into it before we can work out effective treatments.

I'm going for a lie down now and think about something other than a strangers bowel movements.

 

[Timaca]

I take the Hyperbiotics pro-15 and I noticed the rosacea going away right away. Every day my face was more clear, with just a faint bit of pink remaining. Besides helping the rosacea, I also don't have to be on a permanent low FODMAP diet anymore - I can 'cheat' and eat some sugary treats in moderation and I don't have the terrible SIBO effects. It's definitely killing off whatever bad bacteria is causing my SIBO and rosacea.

Thanks Azriel for your reply. I have some of that probiotic in my refrigerator. I did try it but it seemed to give me issues. I may retry it again based on your experience so thanks for sharing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Timaca]

I'm going for a lie down now and think about something other than a strangers bowel movements.

Your comment brightened my morning. Thanks for the chuckle!