Probiotics effective for treating constipation in Parkinson's disease patients: Study

Canada: Multistrain probiotics is safe and effective for the treatment of constipation in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), finds a recent study in the journal Neurology.

Constipation is a common problem that significantly affects quality of life, causes gastrointestinal (GI) emergencies, morbidity particularly affects PD patients. Ai Huey Tan, Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto, Canada, and colleagues aimed to determine whether probiotics are effective for constipation, a common and often difficult-to-treat problem, in Parkinson disease.

For the purpose, the researchers performed a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, single-center trial. In the trial, 280 PD patients were screened out of which 72 patients were found to be eligible. They were block randomized in the ratio 1:1 to receive either multistrain probiotics capsules (n = 34) or identical-appearing placebo (n = 38), for 4 weeks.

The primary endpoint was the change in the average number of spontaneous bowel movements (SBM) per week during the last 2 weeks of intervention compared with the 2-week preintervention phase, recorded by daily stool diary. Secondary outcome measures included changes in stool consistency, constipation severity score, and quality of life related to constipation.