Effect of probiotics on human blood urea levels in patients with chronic renal failure.

Introduction: Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) show an increase in bowel aerobic bacteria that produce uremic toxins and decreased anaerobic bacteria as bifidobacteria and lactobacillus. The latter can be used as probiotics. The probiotic with greater availability in Mexico, is the lactobacillus casei shirota (LcS), currently there is no known LcS specified dose that produces a benefit to the patient with CKD.

Objective: To determine the effectiveness of two different LcS doses in achieving a decrease in urea concentrations of at least 10% in patients with KDOQI stage 3 and stage 4 CKD. METODOLOGY: A simple randomized, controlled clinical trial. Outpatients treated at the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition Salvador Zubirán in México D.F. Patients were provided the LcS, as follows: Group A: 8 x 10(9) colony-forming units (CFU) and Group B: 16 x 10(9) CFU. Patients were followed-up for eight weeks, and baseline and final samples were obtained to calculate the basal and final concentrations, respectively, of blood urea and serum creatinine (CrS). During the follow-up, both groups consumed a diet of 30 kcal/kg/weight and 0.8 g/kg/weight of protein, and a food diary was made to assess both the adherence to the diet and LcS.

Results: Thirty patients with CKD were evaluated. When analyzing the percentage change between the different doses, a decrease > 10% was found in the blood urea concentrations for patients treated with the 16 x 109 dose, which was significant with respect to the baseline measurement.

Conclusion: There was a > 10% decrease in the serum urea concentrations with LcS in patients with stage 3 and 4 CRF.