Probiotics can provide some benefits for patients with ulcerative colitis (UC)

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of existing medical literature (http://www.chemdrug.com/sell/76/) showed that probiotics can provide some benefits for patients with ulcerative colitis (UC), but not for Crohn's disease Relevant contents are published online on alimentary Pharmacy & therapeutics In particular, probiotics may have the same effect as mesalazine in preventing the recurrence of inactive UC, and probiotic medicine (http://www.chemdrug.com/invest/253/) food vslා3 may effectively induce the remission of UC "Previous meta-analyses have looked at the benefits of probiotics in specific subsets of IBD patients, but no one has synthesized the evidence currently available to demonstrate their role in IBD, and some evidence has been reported to have significant limitations," said Dr Alex Ford and colleagues at the Leeds Institute of gastroenterology at the University of St James hospital in the UK In order to update and test the role of probiotics in inflammatory bowel disease, Ford and his colleagues reviewed the relevant medical literature published until November 2016, and finally included 22 eligible randomized controlled trials comparing probiotics with 5-aminosalicylic acid and placebo (http://www.chemdrug.com/sell/24/) "We conducted a comprehensive, simultaneous study to maximize the inclusion of probiotics in all tests (http://www.chemdrug.com/sell/76/) for IBD," they wrote This means that we have identified the missing randomized controlled trials from previous meta-analyses and the data published after these meta-analyses " According to a study of seven placebo-controlled trials, 56.3% of 295 patients who used probiotics and 66.3% of 240 patients who used placebo failed to get relief in active UC patients Therefore, the researchers found that probiotics were not superior to placebo in inducing remission in active UC patients However, when the analysis was limited to three trials related to VSL × 3, 56.2% of 162 patients receiving probiotics failed to achieve remission, and 75.2% of 118 patients receiving placebo did not achieve remission, indicating that VSL × 3 was more effective than placebo In addition, the investigators found that probiotics were equally effective in preventing UC recurrence at rest and 5-ASAs, based on three randomized controlled trials, with 39.2% recurrence in 277 patients receiving probiotics and 39.7% recurrence in 109 patients receiving 5-ASAs On the contrary, they found no evidence that probiotics are effective in the remission of Crohn's disease or prevent the recurrence of Crohn's disease in the resting phase after the postoperative remission "However, the number of studies on this issue is small and further high-quality randomized controlled trials are needed to determine their efficacy in this case," Ford and his colleagues concluded "The role of probiotics in the subgroup of IBD patients is uncertain."