Probiotics and Prebiotics. Its Role in Childhood Acute Diarrheal Disease Therapy
DOI :
Edgar Játiva-Mariño; Carlos Manterola; Roque Macias & Daniel Narváez
Summary
In Ecuador childhood acute diarrheal disease (CADD) constitutes a serious public health problem, representing the 2nd cause of infant morbidity and mortality in children under 5 years of age. Oral and parenteral hydration in hospitalized children, with standard treatments according to their degree of dehydration and weight loss, as well as preventive measures such as mandatory vaccination against rotavirus, have contributed to a decrease. Nevertheless, this childhood disease has still not been resolved. There are multiple contributing factors involved that prevent complete eradication of the disease Among these are socio-economic problems, education, early weaning and poor feeding practices, all of which continue to affect infants. Recent studies have proposed the use of probiotics that help reduce the problem and it has been suggested that Saccharomyces boulardii (SB), associated with a prebiotic, would reduce the treatment time of an CADD. Therefore, the symbiosis between the SB probiotic and a prebiotic called fructo- oligosaccharide (FOS) could be an alternative to reduce complications and reduce costs. An alternative to measure the clinical course of an CADD in infants is the BITTS scale, which was recently created and can easily be applied by clinicians. The aim of this manuscript was to summarize the existing evidence regarding the role of PROBIOTICS and prebiotics in the treatment of CADD.
JÁTIVA-MARIÑO, E.; MANTEROLA, C.; MACIAS, R. & NARVÁEZ, D. Probióticos y prebióticos. Rol en la terapéutica de la enfermedad diarreica aguda infantil. Int. J. Morphol., 39(1):294-301, 2021.
