Effect of Saccharomyces boulardii in Children with Acute Gastroenteritis and Its Relationship to the Immune Response

Abstract

We evaluated the effect of Saccharomyces boulardii administration in otherwise healthy children aged between 6 months and 10 years who were admitted for acute diarrhoea (15 males, 12 females). The patients were randomized into two groups: group 1 (n = 16) received 250 mg S. boulardii dissolved in 5 ml of water orally twice daily for 7 days and group 2 (n = 11) received placebo. Clinical and laboratory assessments were performed on admission and on day 7 of follow-up. Both groups experienced reduced daily stool frequency, the decrease being significantly greater in group 1 on days 3 and 4 compared with group 2. Group 1 demonstrated significant increases in serum immunoglobulin A and decreases in C-reactive protein levels on day 7. The percentage of CD8 lymphocytes on day 7 was significantly higher in group 1 than group 2. This study confirmed the efficacy of S. boulardii in paediatric acute gastroenteritis and the findings suggest that S. boulardii treatment enhances the immune response.

Treatment of Diarrhea-Predominant Irritable Bowel Syndrome With Mesalazine and/or Saccharomyces Boulardii

“…These findings, associated with increased mast cell degranulation, increased spontaneous release of MC tryptase and histamine 1 and increased proximity of MC to enteric nerves in IBS, suggest a role for MC in the disturbed, sensorimotor function characteristic of this condition (3,16,26,39,40,41,58) . The proximity of MC to enteric nerves suggests that MC mediators have increased potential to activate enteric neurons (39) .…”

“…During the intestinal transit, S. boulardii interacts with resident microflora and intestinal mucosa. Moreover, experimental studies suggest that S. boulardii is protective against enteric pathogens, modulating the host immune response, decreasing inflammation and hydro electrolytic secretions, inhibiting bacterial toxin and enhancing trophic factors such as brush border membrane enzymes and nutrient transporters (7,8,10,14,37,53,40,44,47) .…”

Efficacy and Safety of Saccharomyces boulardii for Acute Diarrhea

“…Twelve studies enrolled inpatients, 13,[16][17][18][19][39][40][41][42][43][44][45] 5 enrolled outpatients, 14,37,46-48 and 2 enrolled both inpatients and outpatients. 49,50 There was no information about the hospitalization state of participants in 3 studies. 38,51,52 For most of the studies the daily dosage of S. boulardii was 250 to 750 mg (10 9 to 10 10 colony-forming units).…”

“…46 Eight studies were rated as adequate 14,16,19,37,43,45,48,51 and 4 were inadequate for generation of the allocation sequence, 17,39,46,47 and the method used for allocation sequence was unclear in 10 studies. 13,18,38,[40][41][42]44,49,50,52 Four studies were adequate, 14,43,45,48 14 studies were unclear, 13,16,18,19,37,38,[40][41][42]44,[49][50][51][52] and 4 studies were inadequate (as they used a method such as alternation. 17,39,46,47 ) for allocation concealment.…”

Saccharomyces boulardiieffects on gastrointestinal diseases

“…boulardii induces a protection against enteric pathogens (Czerucka and Rampal, 2002;Mumy et al, 2007), modulates the host immune response (Ozkan et al, 2007;Rodrigues et al, 2000), decreases inflammation (Lee et al, 2005;Sougioultzis et al, 2006) and hydroelectrolytic secretions (Czerucka and Rampal, 1999), inhibits bacterial toxins (Castagliuolo et al, 1999;Tasteyre et al, 2002) and enhances trophic factors such as brush border membrane enzymes and nutrient transporters (Buts et al, 1986;Buts et al, 1994).…”