The next time you fill a prescription for antibiotics, you might want to stock up on yogurt too, new research suggests.
Probiotics – beneficial organisms that occur naturally in yogurt and other healthy foods -- may counteract some of the negative side effects of antibiotics, including diarrhea, according to a new review of dozens of previous studies.
The analysis, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests probiotics may be used in concert with antibiotics to help restore a healthy bacterial balance in people who take antibacterial drugs.
"The use of antibiotics that disturb the gastrointestinal flora [microbes] is associated with clinical symptoms such as diarrhea, which occurs in as many as 30 percent of patients,” the researchers said, noting the negative side effect is one reason people stop taking the drugs. “There is an increasing interest in probiotic interventions, and evidence for the effectiveness of probiotics in preventing or treating [diarrhea] is also increasing."
Susanne Hempel, of RAND Health in Santa Monica, led the analysis of studies on probiotic use. Researchers reviewed 82 studies involving nearly 12,000 patients that examined the health benefits of consuming Lactobacillus and other probiotics along with antibiotics.
Overall, researchers found people who used probiotics were 42 percent less likely to develop diarrhea than those who did not.