Blackmores Institute

Reporting in the journal Nutrients, the study investigated the efficacy of Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (ATCC 53103) in combination with the avoidance of cow’s milk in the maternal diet to treat infantile colic, and found reductions in crying time and faecal calprotectin, with increased total bacteria and Lactobacillus after 28 days of treatment.“Our results suggest that probiotic intervention for 28 days with L. rhamnosus GG mitigates symptoms of infant colic, reducing daily crying time and faecal calprotectin levels in breastfed term infants. Recent evidence suggests that infantile colic should be seen as the result of impairments in the gut microbiota with subsequent gut inflammation.“For these reasons, intervention with a probiotic such as L. rhamnosus GG, which is the most studied probiotic in this atopy field, may exert an insightful influence on gut immune system maturation and tolerance acquisition in the early life and therefore play a pivotal role in the improvement of colic-related symptoms. In this regard, L. rhamnosus GG administration has also been reported to induce tolerance in infants with suspected cow's milk allergy,” the authors explained.Infant colic may be attributed to a number of causes according to the study, such as possible allergens found in cows’ milk proteins which, if ingested by the mother, may be passed through in breast milk or found in infant formula. Another possible relationship between food intolerance and infantile colic comes from the presence of dysmotility with visceral hypersensitivity and dysbiosis.With faecal calprotectin a direct measure of mucosal inflammation activity it is increasingly being used as a marker for inflammatory bowel disease, especially as it becomes detectable when intestinal inflammation is still at an insufficient level to cause an increase in serum inflammation markers. “In our study, we found a reduction in faecal calprotectin in infants treated with Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG as compared with the placebo group. Until now, Lactobacillus reuteri DSM 17938 has been considered for the management of breastfed colic infants, while data on the benefit of other probiotic strains, such as L. rhamnosus GG were limited on infantile colic and were therefore analysed in the present trial. To confirm these results, a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial on a larger cohort is required.“This study expands the current knowledge on probiotics, showing that L. rhamnosus GG (ATCC 53103) is also effective in reducing crying time due to infantile colic. Our findings also show that L. rhamnosus GG (ATCC 53103) could represent a new tailored therapeutic approach for this common disturbance in early life,” the researchers concluded.
 
 Source: Nutrients. 2020. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12061693">DOI: 10.3390/nu12061693</a>

Researchers have found probiotic treatment leads to a reduction of infantile colic symptoms, and are calling for further studies to be undertaken to expand their findings.

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