Probiotics may be worse than useless

[redbird]

In an admittedly small study of the effects of probiotics after a course of antibiotics, the gut microbiome took longer to return to normal than in people who didn't take them.

What did help was autologous fecal microbiome transplantation (aFMT), but I'm fairly sure that would cost more, because of the work involved, and require some advance planning: it's not likely to be available to the person whose doctor says "you have pneumonia, I'm calling in an antibiotic prescription."

The lead researcher told the BBC that future probiotics would have to be tailored to individual patients.

Comments

[vass]

Well, that's annoying.

[the_siobhan]

My partner had good luck with them when he was recovering from chemo. But that probably has a more extreme impact on gut flora than your average round of antibiotics.

[pameladean]

I'm in the middle of a course of antibiotics right now. I haven't had any success with taking probiotics in capsule form (that is to say, they severely upset my digestion and cause a general state of war between themselves and the rest of me), but I usually increase my yogurt consumption if I'm taking antibiotics.

I wonder if results would vary depending on which antibiotic was used.

P.

[establishingaplace]

I have a cousin who works in biomedical research and swears that probiotics are bullshit. Not that I trust him 100% because he's one of those annoying geniuses who sometimes exaggerates because he knows no one will question him.