09.27.21
A three-strain probiotic formulation marketed as Bio-K Plus was linked to substantial reductions in Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) among hospital patients, many of whom were on antibiotics, a new study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found.
CDI is most common among elderly people with compromised immune systems, and outbreaks often occur in hospital and nursing home settings, the Centers for Disease Control reports. It is estimated to cause almost half a million infections in the U.S. each year, and one in 11 people over the age of 65 diagnosed with a healthcare-associated CDI die within one month.
The proprietary three-strain formulation was administered in the present study to a hospitalized population in Quebec who were currently undergoing antibiotic therapy, which is a leading risk factor for CDI. In total, the researchers recruited 2,995 patients in the probiotics intervention group, with 2,142 patients making up the observation group.
“Antibiotics are a mainstay of hospital medicine but each exposure causes changes to the patient’s intestinal microbiota,” the authors of the present study said. “The use of multiple antibiotics compounds the risk of [CDI] which can manifest as disabling diarrhea and be life threatening. The majority of efforts undertaken by hospitals to avoid CDI focus on two broad strategies: minimizing exposure to pathogens with environmental cleaning and patient isolation, and minimizing susceptibility to infection (with fewer concurrent antibiotics or high-risk antibiotics). Probiotics, formulations containing live microorganisms, offer another complementary approach and aim to improve a patient’s defenses to CDI.
Across the intervention period, which lasted 18 months, the investigators observed a significant decrease of 39% of hospital-wide CDI cases, compared to the 12-month observation period in which Bio-K Plus wasn’t co-administered with antibiotics. Furthermore, the reduction in CDI was higher than 50% in a subset of patients receiving more than one antibiotic.
“We owe the study’s success to the high prevalence of Bio-K’s prescription in hospitalized antibiotic users,” lead author Dr. Perre-Jean Maziade said. “Thus, 70% of eligible patients took Bio-K Plus during the intervention period.”
“Our new clinical study is in addition to the many clinical studies performed in various North American hospitals over the past two decades,” Matthieu Millete, PhD, scientific director of Bio-K Plus said. “By combining medical grade probiotic formulations with standard preventative measures, it is possible to further reduce the incidence of C. difficile infections.”
One study was also led by Maziade, and detailed a full decades’ worth of data supporting the use of the three strains, Lactobacillus acidopholus CL1285, Lactobacillus casei LBC80R, and Lactobacillus rhamnosus CLR2, to reduce gastrointestinal problems in hospitalized patients on antibiotics, based on tracking its administration in a 284-bed community hospital in Quebec. In total, the probiotic formula is supported by 100,000 documented patient-cases, without any serious adverse events in several studies.
Bio-K Plus is approved by Health Canada as a Natural Health Product for reducing the risk of developing antibiotic-associated diarrhea and C. difficile-associated diarrhea in hospitalized patients.
CDI is most common among elderly people with compromised immune systems, and outbreaks often occur in hospital and nursing home settings, the Centers for Disease Control reports. It is estimated to cause almost half a million infections in the U.S. each year, and one in 11 people over the age of 65 diagnosed with a healthcare-associated CDI die within one month.
The proprietary three-strain formulation was administered in the present study to a hospitalized population in Quebec who were currently undergoing antibiotic therapy, which is a leading risk factor for CDI. In total, the researchers recruited 2,995 patients in the probiotics intervention group, with 2,142 patients making up the observation group.
“Antibiotics are a mainstay of hospital medicine but each exposure causes changes to the patient’s intestinal microbiota,” the authors of the present study said. “The use of multiple antibiotics compounds the risk of [CDI] which can manifest as disabling diarrhea and be life threatening. The majority of efforts undertaken by hospitals to avoid CDI focus on two broad strategies: minimizing exposure to pathogens with environmental cleaning and patient isolation, and minimizing susceptibility to infection (with fewer concurrent antibiotics or high-risk antibiotics). Probiotics, formulations containing live microorganisms, offer another complementary approach and aim to improve a patient’s defenses to CDI.
Across the intervention period, which lasted 18 months, the investigators observed a significant decrease of 39% of hospital-wide CDI cases, compared to the 12-month observation period in which Bio-K Plus wasn’t co-administered with antibiotics. Furthermore, the reduction in CDI was higher than 50% in a subset of patients receiving more than one antibiotic.
“We owe the study’s success to the high prevalence of Bio-K’s prescription in hospitalized antibiotic users,” lead author Dr. Perre-Jean Maziade said. “Thus, 70% of eligible patients took Bio-K Plus during the intervention period.”
“Our new clinical study is in addition to the many clinical studies performed in various North American hospitals over the past two decades,” Matthieu Millete, PhD, scientific director of Bio-K Plus said. “By combining medical grade probiotic formulations with standard preventative measures, it is possible to further reduce the incidence of C. difficile infections.”
One study was also led by Maziade, and detailed a full decades’ worth of data supporting the use of the three strains, Lactobacillus acidopholus CL1285, Lactobacillus casei LBC80R, and Lactobacillus rhamnosus CLR2, to reduce gastrointestinal problems in hospitalized patients on antibiotics, based on tracking its administration in a 284-bed community hospital in Quebec. In total, the probiotic formula is supported by 100,000 documented patient-cases, without any serious adverse events in several studies.
Bio-K Plus is approved by Health Canada as a Natural Health Product for reducing the risk of developing antibiotic-associated diarrhea and C. difficile-associated diarrhea in hospitalized patients.
