This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Probiotics may lower rehospitalization rate in patients with mania

Faith Dickerson

Study findings published in Bipolar Disorders indicated probiotic supplementation was linked with a lower rate of rehospitalization in recently discharged patients following hospitalization for mania.

“Previous studies have identified correlations between immunological abnormalities and mania, and this may contribute to the acute mood state,” Faith Dickerson, PhD, MPH, director of the Stanley Research Program at Sheppard Pratt Health System, Baltimore, said in a press release. “With increasing evidence about the potential benefits of probiotics to regulate mood through the gut-brain axis, we saw an opportunity to further explore the use of probiotics as there have been no published trials with mania.”

Researchers assessed whether administrating probiotic organisms prevented psychiatric rehospitalization in 66 patients recently discharged from hospital for mania. They randomly allocated discharged patients to receive 24 weeks of adjunctive probiotics — Lactobacillus rhamnosus strain GG and Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis strain Bb12 – or adjunctive placebo to determine the effect of treatment on the risk for rehospitalization. The investigators evaluated patients during a 24-week period after discharge via weekly phone calls and monthly in-person visits, according to the press release.

During the 24-week observation period, Dickerson and colleagues observed 24 rehospitalizations among the 33 participants who received placebo and eight rehospitalizations among the 33 participants who received the probiotic treatment (P = .009). According to the release, 51% of patients in the placebo group had at least one rehospitalization during the study period, but only 24% of those in the probiotics group had a rehospitalization.

Analysis revealed probiotics administration was linked with an advantage in time to all psychiatric rehospitalizations (HR = 0.26, 95% CI, 0.1-0.69; P = .007) and resulted in fewer rehospitalization days (mean 8.3 vs. 2.8 days for placebo and probiotic treatment; P = .017). In total, those in the placebo group were hospitalized for 275 days whereas those in the probiotic group were hospitalized for 93 days, the release said. Furthermore, probiotic treatment in participants with high levels of gastrointestinal inflammation was associated with a nearly 90% reduction in risk for rehospitalization during the study, according to the release.

“Our study provides evidence that the administration of probiotic organisms can alter the clinical course of individuals discharged following hospitalization for mania,” Dickerson and colleagues wrote. “The adjunctive use of probiotics might represent a major addition to the therapeutic armamentarium for the management of mania and other mood disorders.” – by Savannah Demko

Disclosures: This study was funded by the Stanley Medical Research Institute.