Washington (ISJ): A first-of-its-kind of study by researchers at the Davis School of Medicine, University of California shows, probiotics significantly improve the symptoms of pregnancy-related nausea, vomiting and constipation.
Nausea and vomiting affect about 85 percent of pregnancies and can significantly impact quality of life, particularly during early pregnancy.
“The cause of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy is unknown to this date. Various theories have been proposed, but none of them is conclusive,” said Albert T. Liu, lead author of the study and a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology.
“Nausea, vomiting and constipation during pregnancy can significantly diminish the quality of patients’ lives. Once nausea and vomiting during pregnancy progress, they can become difficult to control, and sometimes the patient even needs to be hospitalized,” Liu said.
Beneficial microbes
Probiotics are referred to as “beneficial bacteria.” They can be found in foods like yogurt, kimchi, kefir, sauerkraut and tempeh. Probiotics are also available as food supplements.
Probiotics are thought to support the community of different microbes, often referred to as the “gut microbiome,” found in the gastrointestinal tract.
During pregnancy, hormones like oestrogen and progesterone increase, bringing about many physical changes. These increases can also change the gut microbiome, which likely affects the digestive system functions and causes unwanted symptoms like nausea, vomiting and constipation.
The researchers set out to determine whether supplementing with a probiotic could be beneficial for gastrointestinal function during pregnancy.
The study lasting for 16 days and a total of 32 participants were given a probiotic capsule twice a day for six days and then took two days off. They then repeated the cycle.
Participants kept 17 daily observations of their symptoms during the duration of the study, for a total of 535 observations for the researchers to statistically assess.
The researchers found that taking the probiotic significantly reduced nausea and vomiting. Nausea hours (the number of hours participants felt nauseous) were reduced by 16 percent, and the number of times they vomited was reduced by 33 percent. Probiotic intake also significantly improved symptoms related to quality of life, such as fatigue, poor appetite and difficulty maintaining normal social activities, as scored by questionnaires.
Probiotics were also found to reduce constipation significantly.
New clues from gut microbes and by-products
Participants also contributed faecal specimens before and during the study. The samples were analysed to identify the type and number of microbes and the different by-products of digestion.
This allowed the researchers to examine whether biomarkers in the faecal specimens corresponded with more severe nausea and assess how the probiotics affected participants who began the study with different baseline biomarkers.
One finding was that a low amount of bacteria that carry an enzyme named bile salt hydrolase, which generates bile acid to absorb nutrients, was associated with more pregnancy-related vomiting. Probiotics increase bile salt hydrolase-producing bacteria, which may explain why the supplements decreased levels of nausea and vomiting.
Another finding was that high levels of the gut microbes Akkermansia and A. muciniphila at the beginning of the study were associated with more vomiting. The probiotic significantly reduced the amount of those particular microbes and also reduced vomiting. This suggests Akkermansia and A. muciniphila may be reliable biomarkers that can predict vomiting in pregnancy.
Another finding was that vitamin E levels increased after taking probiotics. Higher levels of vitamin E were associated with low vomiting scores.
Although the findings, published in the journal Nutrients, are intriguing, the researchers caution that due to the small sample size, further studies will be needed to confirm the effects of the probiotics.
Source: UC Davis School of Medicine
Image courtesy: UC Davis School of Medicine
