Probiotic bacteria in the prevention and the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease.
Definitive curative strategies for inflammatory bowel disease remain challenging for physicians and patients. For decades, probiotic organisms have been used in various gastrointestinal diseases. Only recently has comprehension of the pathophysiology of inflammatory bowel disease developed to the point where the significance of the host gastrointestinal microbial population is seen to have marked influence on the initiation and ongoing inflammatory processes of Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis. Well-designed, large randomized controlled trials using probiotics in patients with inflammatory bowel disease are required for probiotics to become mainstream therapy.