Study says consumption of probiotics can reduce kids’ need for antibiotics

According to a recent study, they have suggested that the use of probiotics is directly linked to reducing the need for antibiotic treatment in infants and children. The research compiled using results from 12 similar studies, infants and children were 29% less likely to have been prescribed antibiotics if they received probiotics as a daily health supplement. When the analysis was repeated with only the highest quality studies, this percentage increased to 53. The study appears in the European Journal of Public Health.


Daniel Merenstein study’s senior investigator said, “Given this finding, one way to reduce the use of antibiotics is to use probiotics on a regular basis. We already have evidence that consuming probiotics reduces the incidence, duration, and severity of certain types of common acute respiratory and gastrointestinal infections. The question is whether that reduction is solidly linked to declining use of antibiotics, and we see that there is an association.”


Lead author Sarah King, said, “More studies are needed in all ages, and particularly in the elderly, to see if sustained probiotic use is connected to an overall reduction in antibiotic prescriptions. If so, this could potentially have a huge impact on the use of probiotics in general medicine and consumers in general.”


Sarah King concluded by saying, “We don’t know all the mechanisms probiotic strains may leverage. But since most of the human immune system is found in the gastrointestinal tract, ingesting healthy bacteria may competitively exclude bacterial pathogens linked to gut infections and may prime the immune system to fight others.”