People with diarrhoea caused by antibiotics may benefit from taking probiotic supplements, a review has found.
Researchers at the Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute in Toronto, Canada, studied the results of 23 trials involving 4,213 adults and children.
They found that taking probiotics alongside antibiotics reduced the number of people with diarrhoea by 64 per cent.
Just two per cent of patients who used probiotics had diarrhoea due to infection with Clostridium difficile (C. difficile), compared with six per cent of patients who were given a placebo (dummy pill).
It is thought that probiotics help to address the imbalance of beneficial bacteria that antibiotics can cause in the gut, preventing other harmful bacteria such as C. difficile from taking hold.
'In the short term, taking probiotics in conjunction with antibiotics appears to be a safe and effective way of preventing diarrhoea associated with Clostridium difficile infection,' said lead researcher Bradley Johnston, whose findings are published in the Cochrane Library.
However, he noted that more research is needed to determine the most effective probiotic strains and doses.
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