Main Article Content

Abstract

Background

Probiotics are live bacteria which are intended to colonize the large intestine and confer physiological health benefits to the host. Prebiotics are food or dietary supplement product that confers a health benefit on the host. It may be a fiber but a fiber is not necessarily a prebiotic. Synbiotics are food ingredients or dietary supplements it is a combination of probiotics and prebiotics. They improve the survival of live microbial dietary supplements in GIT.


Methods

 The study is conducted in a multi-centered, randomized, open label and controlled clinical trial in children with acute diarrhea. The first group would receive conventional anti-diarrheal drug and ORS therapy / i.v fluids will serve as a control group. The second group and the third group will receive a synbiotic preparation and a probiotic with routine anti-diarrheal and ORS/i.v fluids. The active period of treatment will be 5 days. 75 patients were selected out of which there were 25 in each group. Patients with acute severe diarrhea and patients within 12 years of age are included in the study. Severely ill patients and patients with dysentery are excluded from the study.


Results

In probiotic group as well as synbiotic group there was a quicker improvement in number of stools as well as volume of stool as compared to control group. There were no dropouts. There was no difference in subject characters and no confounding variable in all groups.


Conclusion

Based on our experience and outcomes of this study we conclude that probiotic and synbiotic are useful and equally efficacious and better addition to the treatment of acute watery diarrhea. Both probiotics and synbiotics reduce the frequency of stools and total no of days of hospital stay.

Keywords

Prebiotics Synbiotics Pediatric diarrhea Enteropathogens Lactobacilli

Article Details

How to Cite
A. Mohammed Ayyub, & Dr. M. Saravana Kumar M.D. (2021). Synbiotics vs Probiotics in Pediatrics – An Interventional study. International Journal of Research in Pharmacology & Pharmacotherapeutics, 8(2), 237-246. https://doi.org/10.61096/ijrpp.v8.iss2.2019.237-246

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