Canada: Multistrain probiotics is safe and effective for the treatment of constipation in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), finds a recent study in the journal Neurology.
Constipation is a common problem that significantly affects quality of life, causes gastrointestinal (GI) emergencies, morbidity particularly affects PD patients. Ai Huey Tan, Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto, Canada, and colleagues aimed to determine whether probiotics are effective for constipation, a common and often difficult-to-treat problem, in Parkinson disease.
For the purpose, the researchers performed a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, single-center trial. In the trial, 280 PD patients were screened out of which 72 patients were found to be eligible. They were block randomized in the ratio 1:1 to receive either multistrain probiotics capsules (n = 34) or identical-appearing placebo (n = 38), for 4 weeks.
The primary endpoint was the change in the average number of spontaneous bowel movements (SBM) per week during the last 2 weeks of intervention compared with the 2-week preintervention phase, recorded by daily stool diary. Secondary outcome measures included changes in stool consistency, constipation severity score, and quality of life related to constipation.
Key findings of the study include:
SBM increased by 1.0 ± 1.2 per week after treatment with probiotics and decreased by 0.3 ± 1.0 per week in the placebo group.
Significant improvements were also seen for secondary outcomes after correction for multiple comparisons, including stool consistency and quality of life related to constipation.
In the treatment group, 65.6% reported satisfaction with the intervention vs only 21.6% in the placebo group.
One patient (2.9%) in the treatment group withdrew due to a nonserious adverse event.
Fecal calprotectin did not change significantly during the study.
"Multistrain probiotics treatment was effective for constipation in PD," wrote the authors.
"Further studies are needed to investigate the long-term efficacy and safety of probiotics in PD, as well as their mechanisms of action," they concluded.
The study titled, "Probiotics for Constipation in Parkinson Disease: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Study," is published in the journal Neurology.
DOI: https://n.neurology.org/content/96/5/e772