Probiotics in clinical practice as therapeutics against enteric disorders

Abstract

Probiotics are useful in mild enteric disorders that are limited to the presence of individual symptoms such as diarrhoea, constipation, and bloating. More controversial is their use in colonic diverticular disease or in one of the most common disorders, namely the irritable bowel syndrome. With few exceptions and in a limited well defined patients' group, no evidence exists that probiotics induce and maintain remission in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. In this chapter we review the current evidence of the value of probiotics in clinical practice of the following enteric disorders as well as the formulations and compositions of specific probiotics. It will be clear that most of the compositions used are not classified as medicaments, and most of them are free to obtain as over-the-counter preparations administered without medical prescriptions. Therefore, their use as therapeutics is very limited at present. This situation is likely to change in coming years. As shown in other chapters of this book a multidisciplinary approach is bringing scientific protocols to the field of probiotics and new technology to study the complicated field of gut microbiology and ecology is being applied to the study of functional and inflammatory diseases of the gut. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.