A promising new study into the beneficial effects of probiotics has revealed that they can be used to treat patients with alcoholic cirrhosis – a disease which scars the liver and is most commonly caused by heavy drinking.
Probiotics Boost
In the early stages of contracting cirrhosis, there are few symptoms and side-effects, but in time the liver function steadily worsens and could deteriorate to leave the patient in need of a liver transplant.
However, new research emerging from University College London hopes to help banish this reality once and for all with the use of the probiotic Lactobacillus casei shirota.
Probiotics can help boost our immune response by restoring the white blood cell (neutrophil) function in our bodies, as well as aiding digestion and having a wealth of other health benefits.
Heavy Drinkers
UCL recruited 20 people with alcoholic cirrhosis to take part in the trial and a further 13 healthy people to be used as a control group. To begin with, the group of patients with cirrhosis had a 25% lower white blood cell count than the healthy group, which gives a good indication of the weakening of the immune system, inherent with the disease.
12 people from the group of 20 with cirrhosis were given the supplement Lactobacillus casei shirota at a frequency of twice a day for four weeks and at the end of the trial this group's white blood cell count was observed to be normal, in comparison with the other 8 members of the group whose count remained unchanged.
Antidote
This evidence is extremely positive in light of growing alcohol concerns in Europe and around the globe. Also, the grim reality of alcohol cirrhosis is enough to put the healthiest of us onto probiotic yoghurts for life!
Vanessa Stadlbauer who led the research, had this to say of the disease and its new found antidote. "Patients with alcoholic cirrhosis are susceptible to infections and once infected, they have increased in-hospital mortality.. the observed normalisation in phagocytic [white blood cell] capacity was likely to be due to an effect of administration of Lactobacillus casei Shirota."