Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Dec 14, 2015; 21(46): 13020-13029
Published online Dec 14, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i46.13020
Kefir treatment ameliorates dextran sulfate sodium-induced colitis in rats
Altug Senol, Mehmet Isler, Recep Sutcu, Mete Akin, Ebru Cakir, Betul M Ceyhan, M Cem Kockar
Altug Senol, Mehmet Isler, M Cem Kockar, Department of Gastroenterology, Suleyman Demirel University School of Medicine, Isparta 32260, Turkey
Recep Sutcu, Betul M Ceyhan, Department of Biochemistry, Suleyman Demirel University School of Medicine, Isparta 32260, Turkey
Mete Akin, Department of Gastroenterology, Akdeniz University School of Medicine, Antalya 07058, Turkey
Ebru Cakir, Department of Pathology, Tepecik Education and Research Hospital, Izmir 35170, Turkey
Author contributions: Senol A and Isler M designed the research; Senol A and Akin M performed the experiments; Senol A and Isler M wrote the paper; Cakir E helped in the pathologic analysis; Sutcu R, Ceyhan MB, and Kockar MC helped in analyzing the data.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: This study was performed at the Experimental Research and Biochemistry Laboratories, Medical School of Suleyman Demirel University. All procedures involving animals were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the Medical School of Suleyman Demirel University (protocol No. 08.08.2007.06/09).
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflicts of interest with regard to the present study.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at drmeteakin@hotmail.com. Participants gave informed consent for data sharing.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Mete Akin, MD, Department of Gastroenterology, Akdeniz University School of Medicine, Dumlupınar Bulvarı, Antalya 07058, Turkey. drmeteakin@hotmail.com
Telephone: +90-242-2496000 Fax: +90-242-2496040
Received: May 12, 2015
Peer-review started: May 14, 2015
First decision: June 2, 2015
Revised: June 23, 2015
Accepted: September 30, 2015
Article in press: September 30, 2015
Published online: December 14, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: The present study aimed to determine the pathophysiology for the preventive effect of kefir on colitis induced with dextran sulfate sodium in rats. The results show that kefir reduces the clinical disease activity index and histologic colitis scores in an experimental colitis model induced with 3% dextran sulfate sodium. The mechanisms of these beneficial effects of kefir include reductions in myeloperoxidase, tumor necrosis factor-α, and inducible nitric oxide synthase levels. Indeed, the results of this study show that the therapeutic administration of kefir may have a place in the clinical treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases.