Boston: The bacteria living in probiotic formulations like yogurt can cause blood infections in a small number of cases, according to a study which cautions the use of the product in the Intensive Care Units (ICUs) of hospitals. The researchers, including those from the Boston Children’s Hospital in the US, began noticing cases of bacteremia — or blood poisoning by bacteria — among patients in the ICU, which they found was caused by Lactobacillus, which is a genus of bacteria commonly found in probiotics. The study noted that 1.1 per cent of patients receiving probiotics in the hospital’s ICU between 2009 and 2014 suffered from bacteremia. The researchers compared the six ICU cases of bacteremia with another 16 patients in the ICU who were receiving probiotics but didn’t have the infection.
They matched the type of underlying illness, and how long they had been receiving probiotics in the two groups. “We wanted to see if there were factors we could identify clinically, so we could make recommendations about giving probiotics in the ICU,” said study co-author Kelly Flett from Novant Health Eastover Pediatrics, a hospital in North Carolina in the US. “We know from prior studies that certain patients are at higher risk for infection from probiotics — usually those with compromised immune systems, or problems with their intestinal tracts that would allow probiotics to get into the bloodstream,” said Thomas Sandora, co-author of the study from Boston Children’s Hospital. “But these patients did not have any of those risk factors. The only risk factor was being critically ill in the ICU,” Sandora said.
—PTI
