Abstract
Infection by Clostridium difficile, a complication of treatment with antibiotics, causes antibiotic- associated diarrhea (AAD) and can lead to colitis and pseudomembranous colitis. Incidence of C. difficile infection is increasing among the elderly undergoing antibiotics therapy confined to health care facilities, conditions that are expensive to treat, decrease the quality of life and are life threatening. Use of probiotics has been proposed as a method to decrease the incidence of AAD in health care facilities. To examine the efficacy of using probiotics, 120 nursing home residents undergoing antibiotic therapy were provided with a synbiotic tablet containing two probiotics, Saccharomyces boulardii and Bacillus coagulans, and a prebiotic, fructooligosaccharide. Residents were evaluated retrospectively for AAD and C. difficile infection. It was found that 95% of residents treated with antibiotics and taking the synbiotic tablet were free of AAD. More than 97% of the residents did not become infected with C. difficile. No adverse effects were reported. Minor side effects, gastrointestinal upset and nausea, were reported by less than 6% of the residents. The cause of the minor side effects was not known. Only 2.5% of the residents stopped taking the synbiotic tablet because of the gastrointestinal upset. These Results suggest that use of the synbiotic tablet prevents AAD and C. difficile infection in nursing home residents undergoing antibiotic therapy. It is concluded that this synbiotic tablet provides an easy to administer and safe approach to controlling AAD and C. difficile infection in residents in nursing homes.
Highlights
Antibiotics have significantly decreased mortality resulting from infectious disease and increased the success rates of many medical procedures such as surgery
The retrospective data presented in this report suggest that the synbiotic tablet decreased the incidence of associated diarrhea (AAD), C. difficile infection, and C. difficile-associated diarrhea (CDAD) relative to outcomes expected if the population had not taken the tablet
Of the study population was infected with C. difficile, which is 4- to 16-fold lower than the expected 8% to 33% incidence of infection observed in health care facilities [22]
Summary
Antibiotics have significantly decreased mortality resulting from infectious disease and increased the success rates of many medical procedures such as surgery. Loss of native populations of beneficial microbiota exposes the intestinal mucosa and allows non-beneficial and pathological species, including those that are antibiotic-resistant, to populate the intestine [2,3]. This results in a variety of biological changes in the digestive tract including changes in immune function, inflammatory response and normal metabolism [4]. Such changes increase susceptibility to antibiotic-associated diarrhea (AAD) and antibioticresistant infectious diseases [2]
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