Healthy Bacteria Found to Help With Infection in Infants

by | Oct 2, 2017 | 2017, Infant and Children's Health, Probiotics

Written by Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS. A symbiotic preparation of Lactobacillus plantarum ATCC strain 202195 in combination with the prebiotic fructooligosaccharide, when given orally to 2,278 newborns, significantly reduced diarrhea and death from sepsis and significantly increased weight gain compared to the placebo group.

infant healthNewborns can be very vulnerable to bacterial infections. When a severe bacterial infection occurs, it can cause a body-wide (“systemic”) illness called sepsis. This is characterized by “systemic inflammation and circulatory compromise” and is “a major cause of neonatal illness and death”, especially in the developing world 1. Sepsis caused 600,000 deaths worldwide in 2013 2 and accounted for 37% of newborn deaths 3. As a result, finding ways to minimize sepsis in infants is very much needed.

In a 2017 study 2, researchers conducted a community-based, double-blind placebo-controlled randomized trial of 4,556 infants in 149 randomly selected villages in India where newborn and infant mortality rates rank among the highest 4. Infants weighed at least 4 pounds, 6 ounces and showed “no signs of sepsis or other illness”.

A synbiotic is a combination of a probiotic and a prebiotic. The function of the prebiotic is to promote growth and colonization of the probiotic. An oral symbiotic preparation of Lactobacillus plantarum ATCC strain 202195 in combination with the prebiotic fructooligosaccharide was given orally to 2,278 newborns and a placebo of maltodextrin was given to the remaining 2,278 newborns for 7 days beginning on day 2-4 of life.

Researchers chose Lactobacillus plantarum specifically because previous studies have shown this bacterium to colonize for up to four months in infants, thereby posing a possible health benefit 5. Finally, they used the World Health Organization’s criteria for establishing the diagnosis of sepsis 6.

  • After 60 days of intervention, the researchers noted “a significant reduction” in deaths from sepsis in the lactobacillus group. Specifically, while the placebo group had 202 infant deaths in the six months, the lactobacillus group had 117 deaths (a 42.1% reduction in deaths (p < 0.001).
  • In addition, there was a 80.8% reduction in diarrhea in the lactobacillus group compared to the placebo group (0.5% versus 2.6% of infants, p < 0.001) and a 53.4% reduction in local infections in the lactobacillus infants compared to the placebo group (0.7% versus 1.5% of infants, p = 0.015).
  • The weight of infants in both probiotic and placebo groups did not differ at 7 or 28 days; however, at 60 days infants in the symbiotic group increased their weight by a mean of 31.4 grams compared to the placebo group (P=0.03).
  • Finally, only one infant in the lactobacillus group had an adverse event (abdominal bloating) compared to five in the placebo group.

Please note that the benefits and death rates shown above reflect a rural, poverty-stricken community in India where hygiene is poor. The risk of such deaths in developed countries is much less; however, the observed benefits should be transferable to the very low risk infants in these countries.

For the researchers, “These findings suggest that a large proportion of neonatal sepsis in developing countries could be effectively prevented using a synbiotic containing L. plantarum ATCC-202195” and that “In the era of worldwide concern about antimicrobial resistance, probiotics may offer an attractive preventive or adjunct to therapy in treating infections.”

Source: Panigrahi, Pinaki, Sailajanandan Parida, Nimai C. Nanda, Radhanath Satpathy, Lingaraj Pradhan, Dinesh S. Chandel, Lorena Baccaglini et al. “A randomized synbiotic trial to prevent sepsis among infants in rural India.” Nature 548, no. 7668 (2017): 407-412.

© 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.

Greg Arnold is a Chiropractic Physician practicing in Hauppauge, NY.  You can contact Dr. Arnold directly by emailing him at PitchingDoc@msn.com or visiting his web site at www.PitchingDoc.com.

References:

  1. Thaver D, Zaidi AK. Burden of neonatal infections in developing countries: a review of evidence from community-based studies. The Pediatric infectious disease journal. 2009;28(1):S3-S9.
  2. Panigrahi P, Parida S, Nanda NC, et al. A randomized synbiotic trial to prevent sepsis among infants in rural India. Nature. 2017;548(7668):407-412.
  3. Oza S, Lawn JE, Hogan DR, Mathers C, Cousens SN. Neonatal cause-of-death estimates for the early and late neonatal periods for 194 countries: 2000–2013. Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 2015;93(1):19-28.
  4. Mission NH. Impact of Health Interventions in Odisha. Impact of health interventions in odisha. Available at: http://www.nrhmorissa.gov.in/frmhealthstatistics.aspx. Accessed September 28, 2017, 2017.
  5. Panigrahi P, Parida S, Pradhan L, et al. Long-term colonization of a Lactobacillus plantarum synbiotic preparation in the neonatal gut. Journal of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition. 2008;47(1):45-53.
  6. Group YICSS. Clinical signs that predict severe illness in children under age 2 months: a multicentre study. The Lancet. 2008;371(9607):135-142.