Probiotics for Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a disease characterized by chronic inflammation of the joints with eventual destruction of cartilage and bone. To determine if probiotic treatment could help support typical treatment procedures, Beitullah Alipour of the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in Iran performed a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial supplementing RA patients with Lactobacillus casei 01 for eight weeks. Those supplemented with probiotics experienced significant improvements in clinical and immune parameters. The authors suggest that probiotics could be a useful adjunct therapy for RA patients.
Probiotics Lower Cavity Bacteria
To fully quantitate a particular effect of a treatment on a given condition, meta-analyses are performed to evaluate multiple clinical studies simultaneously. Isabelle Laleman of the University Hospital Leuven in Belgium examined research looking at the use of Lactobacillus treatment and the numbers of cavity-forming Streptococcus mutens in the mouth. Compiling data from the studies, she noted that probiotic treatment significantly lowered the numbers of S. mutens. Unfortunately, there’s still too little data to be fully certain that this leads to lowered cavities.
Lactobacilli Stop Murine Menopausal Bone Loss
Bone loss is a major risk for menopausal women. As this form of bone loss is associated with inflammation, Robert A. Britton and his colleagues considered that probiotic treatment could be helpful. To test this idea, they supplemented menopausal mice with Lactobacillus reuteri ATCC PTA 6475. The treated mice were significantly protected from bone loss and demonstrated improved bone resorption markers and inflammatory parameters. Given their striking results, the authors suggest that further research is necessary to see if this could be a potential treatment in menopausal women.
References
- Laleman I, Detailleur V, Slot DE, Slomka V, Quirynen M, Teughels W. Probiotics reduce mutans streptococci counts in humans: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Clin Oral Investig 2014. [Epub ahead of print]
- Britton RA, Irwin R, Quach D, Schaefer L, Zhang J, Lee T et al. Probiotic L. reuteri Treatment Prevents Bone Loss in a Menopausal Ovariectomized Mouse Model. J Cell Physiol 2014. [Epub ahead of print]
- Alipour B, Homayouni-Rad A, Vaghef-Mehrabany E, Sharif SK, Vaghef-Mehrabany L, Asghari-Jafarabadi M et al. Effects of Lactobacillus casei supplementation on disease activity and inflammatory cytokines in rheumatoid arthritis patients: a randomized double-blind clinical trial. Int J Rheum Dis 2014. [Epub ahead of print]