Evaluation of Probiotic Properties of Kefir and Determination its Effects on İnflammatory Bowel Disease Patient’s Lactobacillus Flora of Gaita and Biochemical Parameters and Symptoms

Probiotics are defined as living microorganisms which are useful for human health. Kefir is a kind of fermented dairy product. Chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) is seen in increasing frequency in all age groups.

Some researches show that probiotics have useful effects on inflammatory bowel diseases but there was no study about kefir. Kefir, has probiotic properties that it is thought to manipulate the microbiome and balance the degraded microflora.

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of kefir consumption on IBD patients’ microflora, biochemical parameters, symptoms and also quality of life who have had poor response to other therapies.

The species identification of Lactobacillus isolates were performed by Vitek® MS mass spectrometer (bioMerieux, Marcy I’Etoile, France) and API (bioMerieux, France).  Patient's lactobacilus and Lactobacillus kefiri flora were quantitated by Real Time-q PCR (Roche LightCycler Nano). At the same time the patient’s quality of life about disease, monitored by a symptom diary form that includes parameters as stool consistency, abdominal pain, bloating, defacation frequency and feeling good. 

After 28 days administration, the Lactobacillus bacterial load of feces of all subjects was 10⁵–10⁷ CFU/g and first and last measurements were statistically significant (p=0.001 in UC; p=0,005 in CD). For CD patients, there was a significant decrease in ESR and CRP while HGB increased and  last 2 weeks, bloating scores were significantly reduced (p = 0.012), feeling good scores improved (p = 0.032).  While there was a significant statistical difference between Crohn and control group for their abdominal pain and bloating scores (p = 0.006, p = 0.003) there was no other significant statistical difference in terms of other variables. 

According to data , regular consumption of kefir may improve both symptoms and quality of life in short term especially for the patient’s with CD.