Probiotics and Colitis

February 25/Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week -- Animal and clinical studies indicated that gastrointestinal bacteria play an important role in the development of ulcerative colitis (UC), and the supplement of probiotics was beneficial for UC. Because of the specific damage site of UC and the different colonization of each bacterium, it is suggested that different probiotics displayed different effects on UC. The obvious effective strain should be more beneficial for UC.

A research article published in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this. The research team led by Professor Lu from the Department of Gastroenterology, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University compared the effects of four strains of probiotics which were isolated from healthy human feces by his facility, in order to find one or two obvious effective strains. This investigation showed that all four strains of probiotics (E.feacalis, L.acidophilus, C.butyricum and B.adolescentis) could relieve symptom of experimental colitis close to SASP on an evaluation of weight loss, colon length, DAI scores, histological scores, proteins and mRNA levels of IL-1 and Il-4, and MPO. The effectiveness of E.faecalis was better than the other three strains.

Compare with the study that the Germ-free IL-10-/- mice developed IBD after they were colonized with a pure culture of E.faecalis, this study showed that E.faecalis had different effects on experimental colitis in wild-type mice. The experimental results also indicate that there should be some other inflammatory cytokines involved in the difference of adaptive immunological mechanisms in experimental colitis between wide-type mice and the immunodeficient mice except IL-1 and IL-4.

From the February 16, 2009, Prepared Foods E-dition