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Abstract
The aim of our investigation was to study whether there are significant changes concerning intestinal flora, short chain fatty acids and cellular fatty acids produced by Saccharomyces boulardii (Ultra-Levure® from Biocodex) when given orally (1 g daily, 6 consecutive days) to healthy volunteers and to patients with enteral nutrition. These patients were reported to have diarrhoeal diseases improved by S. boulardii treatment. There were no changes for the facultative bacteria with treatment by S. boulardii, however, there were significant changes concerning the gram-positive anaerobes, some clostridia dropping and bifidobacteria appearing with treatment with this probiotic. Concerning the short chain fatty acids there was a significant increase of acetate, butyrate and propionate in the faeces of patients versus the controls after treatment with this probiotic ( p =0.02). Under treatment the acetic acid increased for the controls, 78.31 versus 66.58 mmol kg m 1 before treatment, and also for the patients, 87.17 versus 69.88 mmol kg m 1. With treatment for the patients there was a significant increase of butyric acid (16 - 4.4 vs 10.1 - 2.9 mmol kg m 1, p =0.004), and propionic acid (26.2 - 3.8 vs 20.9 - 3.7 mmol kg m 1, p =0.04). On the other hand the supplementation with this probiotic allowed the amount of bacterial cellular fatty acids to become normal for the patients with enteral nutrition and almost similar to the amount seen for controls. Before treatment palmitic acid was at 6.35 mg kg m 1 for patients versus 10.17 mg kg m 1 for controls and reach 9.61 mg kg m 1 under treatment versus 8.17 kg m 1 for controls. Stearic acid was at 6.09 mg kg m 1 for patients and reached 8.41 mg kg m 1 under treatment (almost similar to the rate of controls). The 18:1 9 trans -9 cis -11 octadecanoate was at 4.65 mg kg m 1 and reached 8.07 mg kg m 1 under treatment for patients, higher than for controls. This role of S. boulardii had not been described before, possibly because the dosage used in this study is higher than in the preceding studies and is possibly responsible for beneficial effects of this probiotic in prevention of diarrhoeal diseases induced by enteral nutrition.
