[Dallasred1]

Has anyone tried this Probiotic? The study was published in Gastroenterology, showed it worked quite well in IBS. I can't find this strain of B.infantis, though. Any thoughts or suggestions? I have Celiac Disease as well as IBS and have been gluten free for four years. Thanks Judith

[SpAsMaN*]

See my post on the subject in the IBS main discussion. http://eveclone.closedtopic.net/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[claymoreg]

I read about it, too, and have some, but I don't know how much to take or how often. I found it at a local health food store in the refrigerated section.
K

[Dallasred1]

I asked my GI how much to take and I will look it up. Does your contain the exact Bi number that was used in the study? I can't find it anywhere.

[NinaVo]

I just finished a confidential trial with a company that is going to bring this out commercially in the next couple of months. Worked well for me and others in the group.

[Kathleen M.]

http://www.ventris.org.uk/health_supplemen...are_b169-60.htm is in the UK.

http://www.uaslabs.com/sections/raw_materi...p?material_id=3 in the US

If you do a google search for it you'll find there are others. Most of the products seem to be targetted for children.
K.

[SpAsMaN*]

Wait Ninavo,it works well for you?What do you mean?What is your symptoms?
How much did you take?

[SpAsMaN*]

Here the reports from few months ago.I don't know if the strain is available as they claims:

http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/produc...-bacteria-helps

Probiotic bacteria helps irritable bowel syndrome


31/03/2005 - A drink containing a probiotic strain isolated from infants relieved symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome to the same extent as pharmaceutical treatments for the condition, report Irish researchers.

The team from the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, set up last year at Ireland’s University College Cork to investigate bacteria and gut health, found that patients who consumed a malted milk drink containing Bifidobacterium infantis 35624 everyday for eight weeks experienced fewer overall symptoms, abdominal pain and discomfort.
The symptom relief was comparable to that seen with Zelnorm (tegaserod) and Lotronex (alosetron), drugs that have been recently approved for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

IBS is a long-term condition that usually involves cramping, diarrhoea and constipation. It affects between 10 and 15 per cent of the Irish population and a similar proportion of people in other western countries.

However the precise cause of IBS is not fully understood and there is no cure yet. Treatments are aimed at alleviating symptoms but medication, for those with moderate to severe forms of the disease, does not work for all patients.

Senior author on the new study, Professor Eamon Quigley, who is head of UCC’s medical school, said the results "look very good in comparison to pharmacological products".

"We believe we have very significant results. It is at least as effective as lots of available products, and probiotics have a good safety profile too," he told NutraIngredients.com.

In contrast, treatment with another probiotic bacteria, Lactobacillus salivarius UCC4331, also isolated at the Irish centre, appeared to have no more effect on IBS symptoms than a placebo drink.

Both strains, patented by UCC, had shown interesting properties in laboratory studies.

“Previous studies of probiotic preparations have been small and used different probiotics, different doses and different definitions of IBS. Ours is one of the first properly powered trials conducted to accepted standards in this area,� Dr Quigley added.

For the study, published in the March issue of Gastroenterology (vol 128, issue 3, pp541-51), 77 people with IBS were asked to drink a malted milk drink every morning. The drink either contained L. salivarius, B. infantis or no added bacteria. The subjects recorded their symptoms.

“Our hypothesis is that low-grade inflammation is a factor in IBS and that certain probiotic bacteria can reduce this inflammation. We have some evidence to support this theory because our paper shows a change in cytokine ratios after the probiotic treatment," said Dr Quigley.

He added that further clinical trials are ongoing and research into the mechanism will also be carried out by the team.

Neither of the strains is currently commercially available but the APC works in partnership with Procter and Gamble and is hoping to bring the bacteria to market in new products. http://eveclone.closedtopic.net/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

[SpAsMaN*]

Here the center who research these probiotics:

http://apc.ucc.ie/content/

[Jeffrey Roberts]

Probiotic relieves irritable bowel syndrome

Reuters
Nov 1, 2005 — NEW YORK - By Karla Gale

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A beneficial strain --or "probiotic" of bacteria called Bifidobacterium infantis 35624 stabilizes bowel movement frequency in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) who experience either constipation or diarrhea, new study findings suggest.

"Prior work done by our group in animal models of IBS clearly showed that this particular strain has potent immune-modulating effects," lead researcher Dr. Eamonn M. M. Quigley told Reuters Health.

He explained that lab animals with ulcerative colitis, and in humans with IBS, treatment with B. infantis 35624 reverses severe inflammation of the colon "and restores the immune balance from a pro-inflammatory state to an anti-inflammatory state."

To determine the impact of the probiotic on bowel movement frequency, Dr. Quigley, from University Cork College in Ireland, and colleagues randomly assigned 85 female patients with IBS to treatment with B. infantis 35624 for 4 weeks and 80 to treatment with an inert placebo.

For patients with very frequent or very few bowel movements, the bacteria had a significant effect in normalizing the frequency, the investigators reported this week at the annual meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology in Honolulu.

This is "a unique finding," Quigley noted, since "the other agents used or tested in IBS have tended to have efficacy in either a diarrhea-predominant group or a constipation-predominant group, but not in both."

Changes in bowel frequency were accompanied by "very significant improvement in individual symptoms, such as pain and bloating," he added.

"If we continue to show true efficacy for probiotics," the researcher maintained, "this will represent a major step forward because they have the great advantage of having no safety issues to confront."


Copyright 2005 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[Jeffrey Roberts]

Good Gut 'Bugs' Help Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Probiotics Growing into First-Line IBS Treatment

By Daniel DeNoon
WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD
on Monday, October 31, 2005

Oct. 31, 2005 - It's not a Halloween prank. Live bugs are the hottest new treatment for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

The "bugs" aren't insects. They're live bacteria. When bad bacteria grow in our bodies, we call them germs. Good bacteria ingested for health effects are called probiotics.

Probiotics already are in your grocery and health food store in capsules, tablets, gel caps, liquids, and in cultured yogurt products. Not every probiotic product has proven health effects. But as a medical treatment, they're more than just the latest health fad, says University of New Mexico researcher Mohamed O. Othman, MD.

Othman is one of several researchers reporting on probiotics research at this week's 70th annual scientific meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology in Honolulu.

"Probiotics now have been used in many diseases, not only IBS but also ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease and in both children and adults with lactose intolerance," Othman tells WebMD. "It is a new field, and there is a lot of investigation going on."

Help for Some, Harm for None?

Early studies show that some specific probiotics help some IBS patients -- but not others, says gastroenterologist Jay W. Marks, MD. Marks is medical and pharmacy editor for MedicineNet.com, a WebMD company.

"Some patients with IBS respond to treatment with probiotics. But probiotics are clearly not a panacea," Marks tells WebMD. "They are not all the same. Different probiotic bacteria have different effects on the intestine. So we expect it will be important to use the right probiotic for the right patient -- which is not clear yet. We still don't know which ones are appropriate for which patients."

Even so, doctors are recommending probiotics to some IBS patients. That's because the probiotics tested in clinical trials have done no harm, says probiotics researcher Eamon Quigley, MD, of the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Center at University Cork College, Ireland.

"If probiotics are as effective as we think, the great advantage is their safety," Quigley tells WebMD. "There is no evidence of any safety issue. They have the potential to be an effective first-line therapy for IBS and other bowel symptoms in a very safe manner."


B. infantis for IBS

B. infantis for IBS

Quigley's team recently reported data from a study of 77 women with IBS. The researchers gave some of the women a probiotic strain called Bifidobacterium infantis 35624 -- a Proctor & Gamble product called Bifantis, sold in capsule form as Align. The other volunteers received a probiotic called Lactobacillus salivarius UCC4331 or an inactive placebo.

Women who received the lactobacillus strain did not do significantly better than those who got the placebo. But those treated with Bifantis had significantly less abdominal pain and discomfort, bloating and distention, and bowel movement difficulty.

These findings led to a larger, multicenter study of Bifantis. Quigley presented some of this study's first results at this week's ACG meeting. He reported that Bifantis normalized bowel habits for women with IBS. The probiotic worked for women with diarrhea-predominant IBS and for those with constipation-predominant IBS.

"If you look at those who were treated with [Bifantis], whether they started with loose stools or hard stools, they had normalization of bowel habits regardless of what they started out with," Quigley says.

Probiotics: A Growing Field

In their report to the ACG meeting, Othman and colleagues reviewed major clinical studies of probiotics in the treatment of IBS. There were eight studies in their review -- but Othman says that there soon will be more.

"In 1989 we looked at probiotics research, but there was only one study and it was not well known -- even though it showed promising results," Othman says. "By 1994 people started to do more and more studies. The peak is right now. Every three months you find something in the medical literature on probioticssomething in the medical literature on probiotics and its use in different diseasesdifferent diseases."

In general, the studies were promising, if inconclusive. Now that probiotics seem to work in early trials, Othman says, it's time for larger studies to show exactly what they can do -- and for whom.

"For bowel disease in general, it's hard to say what the studies really show. But for IBS, a lot of patients can improve," Othman says. "I try it with a lot of my patients. Some do not respond at all. Some have a good response. I have some IBS patients who tried everything for their diarrhea without success. And after one week of probiotics, the diarrhea stops. But for other patients, we give the probiotic and nothing happens."

Othman says he has not yet given the Bifantis product to patients. He's tried a mixture of eight different bacteria (including a strain of Bifidobacterium infantis) called VSL #3 from Sigma-Tau Pharmaceuticals. He's also tried a lactobacillus GG product.

"Both of them work for some patients, and both didn't work for some patients," he says.


Why Do Probiotics Work for IBS?

Why Do Probiotics Work for IBS?

Exactly how probiotics work is a question that bedevils researchers.

The most obvious theory is that the good bacteria displace bad bacteria. That appears to be part of the answer, says Marks. One thing that may affect some IBS patients is called small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or SIBO.

The large intestine carries a lot of bacteria -- about a billion organisms per milliliter of fluid. But the small intestine is only supposed to have 10,000 organisms per milliliter of fluid. And the small intestine is supposed to have different bacteria than the large intestine.

There's good evidence that some people with IBS have SIBO: an overgrowth of large-intestine bacteria in their small intestines. Unfortunately, Marks says, there's no simple test to detect SIBO. But patients who do have SIBO may benefit from probiotics. The good bacteria may displace the bad bacteria in the small intestine.

That's one issue. Another issue of perhaps even greater importance comes from the Quigley team's research. They find that probiotics may make subtle but important changes in the way a person's immune system works.

The immune system has built in switches that turn inflammatory immune responses on or off. This kind of immune response can be very helpful in responding to acute infection or injury. But in some people with IBS, the switch for inflammatory immune responses seems to be stuck in the "on" position. In ways that are not yet understood, probiotics turn this switch off.

"There is quite a bit of evidence that there is a change in immune function in IBS," Quigley says. "In other words, if you look in detail, you see evidence of inflammatory immune activation in IBS. Certain probiotics have potent anti-inflammatory effects that can restore the balance."

Marks is very interested in these findings, which he calls "extremely tantalizing." But he warns IBS patients that not every product sold as a probiotic is helpful.

"People should not just go to a health food store and buy any probiotic on the shelf," he says. "You want to use one that has been medically studied and that has appropriate effects. About three or four of those available have been tested. VSL #3 is the most tested, then there is lactobacillus GG, another is Flora-Q."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SOURCES: Quigley, E.M. 70th annual scientific meeting, American College of Gastroenterology, Honolulu, Oct. 28-Nov. 2, 2005. Mohamed O. Othman, MD, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Eamon Quigley, MD, University Cork College, Ireland. Jay W. Marks, MD, medical and pharmacy editor, MedicineNet.comMedicineNet.com.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 2005 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.

[Jeffrey Roberts]

Discussion about a product from Proctor & Gamble with this probiotic:

http://ibsgroup.org/...261/m/686106671

[Julia H]

Does anyone know if you can buy Bifantis in the UK?

If not I see there are other products with Bifidobacterium infantis that you can buy in the UK but how do you know if they are the specific strain 35624?

Thanks Julia

[Jeffrey Roberts]

http://www.medpageto...t.cfm?tbid=2077

ACG: Probiotic Compound Seems Effective in Subset of IBS Patients

By Paula Moyer , MedPage Today Staff Writer
Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

MedPage Today Action Points

Explain to patients that although Bifantis is commercially available as a supplement, it is not approved by the FDA and the clinical trials to establish its efficacy for IBS are ongoing.

Review
HONOLULU, Nov. 4 - Bifantis, a probiotic supplement, may be an effective treatment for a select population of patients with irritable bowel syndrome, researchers here reported.

In a placebo-controlled trial of 174 IBS patients, an Irish team said the response rate was better in a Bifantis (Bifidobacterium infantis 35624) arm-63.2% versus 46.5%. But the response was significantly better for patients who had a history of hard stool (P=0.02) or urgency (P=0.05).


By contrast, increased alcohol consumption and a history of straining were both significant predictors of treatment failure.

Eamonn Quigley, M.D., of the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Center of National University of Ireland in Cork, Ireland, reported at the American College of Gastroenterology meeting here.


Dr. Quigley contended that his trial results provide a scientific basis for use of the supplements, which purport to be beneficial strains of bacteria that promote the growth of healthy bacteria in the intestines. He noted that probiotics are readily available as over-the-counter supplements and are gaining popularity among patients.


"Things are changing very quickly here," he said. "Whether you look at animal models or tissue culture models, there is an emerging amount of data regarding probiotics. So there is now a basis in science."


When Dr. Quigley and colleagues adjusted for baseline predictors, the patients randomized to active treatment were 2.15 times as likely to respond as the placebo patients.


The analysis also showed which patients were unlikely to respond, Dr. Quigley said. Those who had symptoms of straining were less likely to respond, with an odds ratio of 0.33. When the investigators adjusted for the baseline predictors, those in the treatment group were 2.15 times as likely to respond as those in the placebo group.


The study recruited 173 patients with a history of IBS and 87 were randomized to Bifantis. Treatment response was defined as at least two weeks of symptom relief during the four-week treatment phase.


Philip Jaffe, M.D., an associate professor of clinical medicine at Yale, applauded Dr. Quigley's attempt to inject science into the world of probiotics.


He said that Dr. Quigley "has been at the forefront of trying to provide scientific evidence-based data to support or dispel the notion that these substances may have some role in treating some patients who have irritable bowel syndrome."


That said, he remained skeptical about the value of probiotics and said he thinks it is too early to start recommending probiotics for patients with IBS. He pointed out, for instance, that a lack of FDA regulation means there is no standardized formulation for the probiotic supplements, which makes it difficult to determine what is really contained in the supplement.


But Dr. Jaffe agreed that patients are likely to use the products.


Dr. Quigley's study was funded by Procter & Gamble, which manufactures Bifantis. Dr. Quigley is a consultant and shareholder in the company.

© 2004-5 MedPage Today, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

[mariana]

Does anyone know if you can buy Bifantis in Mexico?

[SpAsMaN*]

No.See the other post.

[Kathleen M.]

You might not be able to get the exact strain, but quite a few probiotic product have B. infantis in them.

It isn't known how much difference there is between strains. A fair number of US probiotic products include this species (if not the exact strain).

I don't know about what products might be available in Mexico.
K.

[Dallasred1]

I ordered mine online from Procter and Gamble. The website is http://www.aligngi.com. It is $29.99 for 29 tabs. Mine really kicked in after about a month. It has really helped with the nausea and bloating and I can actually sleep through the night. Good Luck.

[Sophie22]

i cant get it in the UK can i? i emailed them but they havent replied

[Kathleen M.]

They just released it in the US, I don't know how long it typically takes before they start selling stuff in other countries.

You might be able to find the same species in a probiotic you can by locally. Won't be the same straing, but this species has been used in a fair number of probiotics as it has been on the radar for awhile, just no solid studies with specific strains.

I googled it and found a couple of things http://www.ventris.org.uk/health_supplemen...are_b169-60.htm is a product with it by itself http://www.head2toes.co.uk/product-info/pr...-probiotic.html is a combination product.

Won't be the same strain, but may be worth trying until the company starts over-seas distribution.

I would encourage people in other countries to keep contacting them. If they know there is a market for it that may help push them to acting in that direction sooner rather than later.
K.