Posted on 01/31/2011 5:02:04 PM PST by decimon
Probiotic offers possibility of safe, drug-free treatment
CHICAGO --- You know the probiotics in your peach yogurt are healthful, but now it appears they may also be a powerful treatment for disease.
A genetically tweaked version of a common probiotic found in yogurt and cheese appears to be an effective therapy for inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. It may also prove to be useful in colon cancer, another disease triggered by inflammation.
Northwestern Medicine researchers deleted a gene in the probiotic Lactobacillus acidophilus and fed the new form to mice with two different models of colitis. After 13 days of treatment, the novel probiotic strain nearly eliminated colon inflammation in the mice and halted progression of their disease by 95 percent.
"This opens brand new avenues to treat various autoimmune diseases of the gut, including inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer, all which can be triggered by imbalanced inflammatory immune responses," said Mansour Mohamadzadeh, associate professor of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and lead investigator of the study. He also is a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.
The study will be published Jan. 31 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
While the origin of these bowel diseases is not known, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are two chronically relapsing diseases in which sufferers have an ongoing tissue inflammation that alters the functioning of the intestine. The diseases affect more than 1 million people in the United States and can cause weight loss, diarrhea, abdominal pain and cramping and gastrointestinal bleeding. Current drug treatment is not completely effective and patients can relapse, Mohamadzadeh said.
"Such gene targeting in a probiotic bacteria such as Lactobacillus acidophilus offers the possibility of a safe, drug-free treatment in the near future," he said.
In the study, the modified Lactobacillus acidophilus entered the gut, which is akin to a battlefield of friendly fire with immune cells attacking the intestine. The Lactobacillus acidophilus acted as the gut's peacekeeping force, calming the overstimulated immune cells.
The probiotic restored intestinal peace by mobilizing messenger immune cells, called dendritic cells. The dendritic cells, in turn, enhanced the production of other functional immune cells, regulatory T-cells that rebalanced intestinal and systemic inflammation.
"They essentially calm everything down and restore it to normal," Mohamadzadeh explained. The next step will be a clinical trial with the new form of Lactobacillus acidophilus.
Mohamadzadeh and his colleagues at the Lurie Cancer Center are currently researching the effect of the new Lactobacillus acidophilus on colon cancer.
Ping
Keeps you regular too.
great news
But but but what would happen to sales of The Purple Pill???
I am kidding. The incidence of H. Pylori is epidemic.
Rock on Pro-Biotics!!
ping
Huge fan here of probiotics! I started taking them when I was combating a systemic candida infection. We now take them regularly, even our 2 year old son. With the probiotics, vitamin C, and vitamin D3, we are rarely sick.
A little background. The GI tract has between 300-1000 different types of bacteria. Of these, 30-40 take up almost all the space. The flora are very interactive with our other microorganisms, our viruses, our immune system, our DNA and many of the parasites we used to be infected with, but no longer are.
The immune system developed all sorts of protections against these parasites, but since they no longer inhabit us, the immune system can be confused, and start to attack our bodies in several ways.
An even greater unknown are the viruses that inhabit our GI tract. Vast in type and number, the majority of them are bacteriophages, that attack bacteria, and thus also strongly impact the system.
But figuring out all these interactions, and how they function in the several completely different GI floras we have in our lifetimes is going to be decades, or more, in the discovery.
.
Get root!
Nah, I guess that’s another thread.
Huge fan as well. Even make sure my dogs get a tablespoon of organic yogurt on their food twice a day. It really helped get my girl dog back to normal after a very bad reaction to medicine from the vet. It wrecked her intestinal track and she suffered from severe diarrhea, then small, cat like poo for weeks. Once I introduced the yogurt, she was back to normal in a few days. They love it and think its some special icing. LOL.
Cheers!
"From past genomic studies, we have learned that a mind-boggling multitude of different kinds of benign bacteria inhabit our intestines and that these populations can vary almost infinitely from one human being to the next. We know that the kind of food we eat is important to our health and we know that having the right bacteria in our intestines is important in digesting our food properly, but we still do not know how our individual variations in gut bacteria might influence more specific health issues. In particular, we do not know how these bacteria influence how the substances we eat affect our organ systems."
Yeah, this isn't yet out of the lab. But it does look good.
Looks like this will not help Clostridium difficile. Too bad — nasty disease.
Dunno. Costs 30 bucks to see the full report and that's probably filled with words I don't understand.
Thank you for posting that. I have forwarded the article to a suffering friend.
You're welcome but this stuff isn't yet available. It's a genetically modified version of Lactobacillus acidophilus that is still being tested.
Still recovering from a bout of c-diff colitis from last month (probably slowly going from at least October) that put me in the hospital.
decimon, can I get added to whatever ping list you have? I had an interest in gut health before, and it has grown even more with the fight against c-diff.
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