Probiotics for the critically ill
I am a huge proponent of probiotics and, when appropriate, will recommend them to my clients. My mother has been taking a quality probiotic supplement for years to resolve her ulcerative colitis symptoms. Many of my clients have been able to resolve their gastric reflux problems by just adding probiotics to their dietary regimen, which helps the health of their gut.
There are many studies looking at the effects of probiotic use in the hospital setting, many investigating how they help infants, in fact. This is one of the latest, which looks at how the uses of probiotics helped immune markers of patients who were going into multi-system organ failure, which is generally a fatal condition where all the organs of the body are shutting down.
Probiotics are the healthy bacteria that live in our gastrointestinal (GI) tract. We all have good bacteria and bad bacteria, so the key is to keep the numbers of good bacteria up, which can control the numbers of bad bacteria. Prebiotics is the food that probiotics live on. When we are able to eat, examples of prebiotics are fruits and vegetables, which is only one reason I encourage people to eat no less than 5 servings per day. However, when a person is in critical condition, even if they are receiving tube feedings into their GI tract, their gut and intestinal tract are compromised.
Probiotics have been shown to modulate the intestinal barrier and improve the immune function. This latest study assessed the effectiveness of a probiotic compound on 27 critically ill patients. These patients were randomized to receive one of three treatments; a live, viable probiotic product (using live probiotics), a placebo, or a treatment of non-live probiotics.
Researchers then measured several concentrations of immune markers and found that patients who received the live probiotics had improved immune activity than those who received the non-live probiotics or the placebos. However, their intestinal permeability did not improve, nor did their multi-system organ failure.
There are two messages from this study to take home. First of all, as I have continued to point out to my clients, in order for probiotics to be effective, they must be LIVE cultures, not the ‘trendy’ pills you can now buy off a shelf that are not refrigerated. As you will learn in the information below on probiotics, these are living organisms, and in order to remain alive, they must be refrigerated. The other message is we must keep our GI tracts healthy and in balance. Not everyone needs to take a supplemental probiotic product. I only take one when I can tell my immune system is at risk or compromised. But you can keep your gut healthy by eating plenty of fruits and veggies, minimize the intake of animal proteins and fats and get adequate whole grains. These are simple steps to take to keep your gut healthy and happy. If you have an accident or some other trauma, if you end up in the hospital, the GI tract acts as your first line of defense against going into multi-system organ failure.
To read the abstract of the study, click here:
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/85/3/816
To read more on probiotics and prebiotics, click here:
http://www.meg-enterprises.com/uploads/ProbioticsQ.pdf
There are many studies looking at the effects of probiotic use in the hospital setting, many investigating how they help infants, in fact. This is one of the latest, which looks at how the uses of probiotics helped immune markers of patients who were going into multi-system organ failure, which is generally a fatal condition where all the organs of the body are shutting down.
Probiotics are the healthy bacteria that live in our gastrointestinal (GI) tract. We all have good bacteria and bad bacteria, so the key is to keep the numbers of good bacteria up, which can control the numbers of bad bacteria. Prebiotics is the food that probiotics live on. When we are able to eat, examples of prebiotics are fruits and vegetables, which is only one reason I encourage people to eat no less than 5 servings per day. However, when a person is in critical condition, even if they are receiving tube feedings into their GI tract, their gut and intestinal tract are compromised.
Probiotics have been shown to modulate the intestinal barrier and improve the immune function. This latest study assessed the effectiveness of a probiotic compound on 27 critically ill patients. These patients were randomized to receive one of three treatments; a live, viable probiotic product (using live probiotics), a placebo, or a treatment of non-live probiotics.
Researchers then measured several concentrations of immune markers and found that patients who received the live probiotics had improved immune activity than those who received the non-live probiotics or the placebos. However, their intestinal permeability did not improve, nor did their multi-system organ failure.
There are two messages from this study to take home. First of all, as I have continued to point out to my clients, in order for probiotics to be effective, they must be LIVE cultures, not the ‘trendy’ pills you can now buy off a shelf that are not refrigerated. As you will learn in the information below on probiotics, these are living organisms, and in order to remain alive, they must be refrigerated. The other message is we must keep our GI tracts healthy and in balance. Not everyone needs to take a supplemental probiotic product. I only take one when I can tell my immune system is at risk or compromised. But you can keep your gut healthy by eating plenty of fruits and veggies, minimize the intake of animal proteins and fats and get adequate whole grains. These are simple steps to take to keep your gut healthy and happy. If you have an accident or some other trauma, if you end up in the hospital, the GI tract acts as your first line of defense against going into multi-system organ failure.
To read the abstract of the study, click here:
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/85/3/816
To read more on probiotics and prebiotics, click here:
http://www.meg-enterprises.com/uploads/ProbioticsQ.pdf
posted by Margie Geiser, MBA, RD, NSCA-CPT at
7:03 AM
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