Probiotics for Diarrheal Diseases

Abstract

In recent years, a large body of literature has been generated on the use of probiotics. Regarded initially as alternative medicine, probiotics - mostly lactic acid bacteria - has gained their position in mainstream medicine, after a robust research activity covering both in vitro and in vivo studies, as well as randomized clinical trials. In terms of diarrheal diseases, the most promising applications appear in the prevention and/or the treatment of acute gastroenteritis, antibiotic-associated diarrhea, neonatal-necrotizing enterocolitis, and ulcerative colitis. It should be kept in mind that different strains of probiotics have different specificities, so no generalizations on the efficacy (or lack thereof) of ``probiotics{''} should be made. This chapter will analyze the evidence for the use of probiotics in such diarrheal diseases; in some cases this is quite consolidated, in others still emerging.