Pleasant Stone Farm Clinical Reports

Combining probiotics with perinatal dietary counselling could help reduce the risk of diabetes in mothers and provide a “safe and cost-effective” tool in addressing obesity in children, according to a new study from Finland.

Published in the British Journal of Nutrition, the study found that probiotic-supplemented dietary counselling could help reduce the risk of diabetes during pregnancy, improve blood glucose control and improve child health.

“Taken together, long-term health benefits for mothers and children may be conferred by balanced maternal nutrition during pregnancy and lactation and by promoting the healthy gut microbiota in the mother and the child. The results of the present study add weight to the argument that the continuing burden of Western lifestyle diseases is modifiable,” write the researchers.

Methods

Initiated in 2002, the study included 256 women, who were randomized during their first trimester of pregnancy into a control and a dietary intervention group.

The women, none of whom had any chronic diseases, all received dietary counselling provided by welfare clinics according to a national program.

The intervention group received additionally intensive dietary counselling at every study visit provided by a nutritionist, the aim being a dietary intake complying with current recommendations, combined with conventional food products with favourable fat and fibre contents for use at home, said the researchers.

The intervention group was further randomised at baseline in a double-blind manner to receive either placebo capsules or probiotics (Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG supplied by Valio, and Bifidobacterium lactis Bb12 supplied by Chr. Hansen) at a dose of 1010 colony-forming units/d each.

The capsules were taken once per day, and the intervention period extended from the first trimester of pregnancy to the end of exclusive breast-feeding.

Results

The researchers evaluated pregnancy outcome and fetal and infant growth during the 24 months’ follow-up.

All pregnancies were of normal duration, and there were no adverse events noted in mothers or in children, which confirms the safety of this approach, said the researchers.

They noted that those women who had taken probiotics had a reduced frequency of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM): 13 percent for the diet/probiotics group, compared to 36 percent for the diet/placebo group and 34 percent for the control group.

In addition, the dietary counselling during pregnancy reduced the risk of fetal overgrowth, which is thought to predispose to later obesity.

“Probiotic intervention reduced the risk of GDM and dietary intervention diminished the risk of larger birth size in affected cases,” wrote the researchers. “The results of the present study show that probiotic-supplemented perinatal dietary counselling could be a safe and cost-effective tool in addressing the metabolic epidemic. In view of the fact that birth size is a risk marker for later obesity, the present results are of significance for public health in demonstrating that this risk is modifiable.”

Source: Impact of maternal probiotic-supplemented dietary counselling on pregnancy outcome and prenatal and postnatal growth: a double-blind, placebo-controlled study
British Journal of Nutrition (2010)
doi:10.1017/S0007114509993898
Authors: Raakel Luoto, Kirsi Laitinen, Merja Nermes and Erika Isolauri

A study from Ukraine has found that supplementation with probiotics for two months had significant benefits for children with atopic dermatitis, adding to the growing body of evidence for the bacteria’s skin health benefits.

Conducted using a mixture of probiotics from US based UAS Laboratories, the study involved 90 preschool children with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis (AD).

AD, also known as Eczema, is one of the first signs of allergy during the early days of life and is said to be due to delayed development of the immune system. It is a common inflammatory skin disorder, which occurs in early childhood and may persists into adult life. According to the American Academy of Dermatologists it affects between 10 to 20 per cent of all infants, but almost half of these kids will ‘grow out’ of eczema between the ages of five and 15.

Current treatments focus on alleviating symptoms, but probiotics have been studied for over 20 years for their therapeutic benefits for the condition.

Presented last week at the New York Academy of Sciences symposium Probiotics: From Bench to Market, the current study was designed to determine the impact of a mixture of L. acidophilus DDS-1 and B. lactis UABLA-12.

Double blind placebo controlled

Conducted by Dr SV Gerasimov, MD, PhD from the Department of Pediatrics, Lviv National Medical University, Lviv, Ukraine, the study involved two groups of children aged one to three.

One group received doses of the probiotics twice a day, to provide a total of 10bn CFU/gram of a combination of Lactobacillus acidophilus DDS-1 and Bifidobacterium lactis UABLA-12 with FOS (fructooligosaccharide). The second group received a placebo.

After four weeks, both groups demonstrated a decrease in SCORAD indexes (scoring of atopic dermatitis), which was the primary outcome measure used to track improvements. The decrease in the group taking probiotics was almost 34 per cent after eight weeks, while the placebo group demonstrated a decrease of 19 per cent.

Secondary outcomes included corresponding lymphocyte subset changes in peripheral blood. The researchers said that more investigation is needed for the efficacy of probiotic therapy in adults with AD.