Probiotics benefit kidney function

2024-07-04

The global CKD(Chronic kidney disease) prevalence is increasing, affecting over 10% of the global population, unfortunately, there is no cure for CKD, with treatments, including lifestyle changes, medication, and dialysis, only assisting in relieving symptoms and delaying their progression. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is characterized by a substantial loss of kidney function, the accumulation of uremic toxins in the circulation that are normally excreted by healthy kidneys causes massive damage to the kidney. In recent years, it has been discovered that besides increased levels of creatinine and blood urea nitrogen, patients with chronic kidney disease also contain gut-derived uremic toxin (GDUT) synthesized by intestinal bacteria. Studies have also found that intestinal flora imbalance is the main cause of gut-derived uremic toxin (GDUT) in patients with end-stage renal disease.

 

Usually, kidney disease will cause abnormal kidney metabolism, causing ammonia to accumulate in the human body. When too much ammonia is in the intestine, it will affect the growth of intestinal microorganisms, leading to damage to the intestinal barrier. At this time, substances that induce intestinal inflammation will affects kidney metabolism through blood circulation, exacerbating kidney damage. Therefore, from the perspective of the gut-kidney axis, it can be found that intestinal microorganisms are related to kidney metabolism. When the gut-kidney axis is imbalanced, it may cause a systemic inflammatory response. Supplementing probiotics or consuming foods that can promote the growth of probiotics not only regulates the composition of the intestinal flora but also protects the intestinal barrier and prevents Kidney damage or slowed kidney function decline.

 

Several human clinical trials have demonstrated the benefits of probiotics on kidney function.Chen et al., among 24 patients who received kidney transplants, 12 of them took Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactobacillus paracasei regularly, and the other 12 served as a control group and compared the creatinine values and glomerular filtration rate 3 months before and after use. The results showed that patients who supplemented Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactobacillus paracasei had significantly lower creatinine values compared with the control group, and the glomerular filtration rate increased, proving that it indeed has an improved effect on kidney function. In addition, Hu et al. used 78 hemodialysis patients with chronic kidney disease and randomly assigned 39 patients to the observation group and 39 patients to the control group. In addition to regular therapy, the observation group also took a probiotic combination (including Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Streptococcus thermophilus, etc.). After treatment, the inflammatory factors (IL-6, TNF-α, CRP) in the blood of the observation group were lower than those of the control group, and the observation group had lower creatinine and urinary nitrogen than the control group, showing that for patients with chronic kidney disease supplemented with probiotic treatment, there will be better therapeutic effects.

 

In conclusion, although several clinical studies have demonstrated the positive impacts of probiotics on various outcomes in patients with CKD, their effectiveness in CKD treatment remains a subject of debate and requires further verification.

 

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