Probiotic treatment of inflammatory bowel disease: Its extent and intensity

Core Tip

Core tip: Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) are degenerative diseases that cause chronic inflammation in the intestine. The most prevalent therapy for IBD is conventional antibiotic therapy. Keeping the adverse effects of antibiotics in mind, researchers have shown that Streptococcus, Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium are some of the most efficient antioxidative agents with respect to in vitro and in vivo activities. Probiotics individually or in combination play an important role in regulating superoxide dismutase activity, which is always dysregulated due to oxidative stress caused in IBD. The mechanism of antioxidation of probiotics using NRf2-antioxidative response element pathway, nuclear factor-B and protein kinase C pathway may be activated to contribute to the reduction of oxidative-stress-induced IBD. The review focuses on the antioxidative activities of the specific bacterial strains as therapeutic molecules in IBD. Multiple combinations of probiotic strains have still not been adequately studied. We are currently researching the antioxidative effect of Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium bifidumin combination.