Health & Wellbeing

Yoghurt fights superbugs

Probiotic yoghurt improves gut problems and aids fat digestion

Probiotic yoghurt is being used in Sussex hospitals as part of a trial to cut the risk of patients developing superbugs. The move comes as record numbers of hospital acquired infections affect patients being treated in NHS hospitals.

The Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Health are giving free pots of yoghurt to patients on wards where there have been outbreaks of the bug Clostridium difficile.

“There is evidence to suggest that using probiotics may reduce a patients’s risk of C.diff and we will be evaluating the difference this has made to the number of cases,” Dr Michael Fletcher, of Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, told the BBC.

Recent research has shown the beneficial effects of probiotic yoghurts in improving gut problems and aiding fat digestion. The yoghurts contain live strains of bacteria which are believed to boost levels of friendly bacteria in the gut.

“Simple hand cleaning hygiene and being careful with foods prevents most infections. But don’t eat from the finger buffet at an orgy.”

Billions of bacteria live in the human gut, some friendly, others not so friendly and patients in hospital receiving antibiotics for other infections are often at high risk of getting nasty, and sometimes fatal, hospital acquired infections.

Many people living with HIV already take pro biotic yoghurts daily to improve gut bacteria flora, to aid digestion, absorption and assimilation of nutrients in food. They also help prevent acute diarrhoea which is a common side effect for many taking antiretroviral medications.

The research suggested that gay men were passing on the drug resistant superbug.

Banner headlines in US and UK papers last month blamed gay men for spreading the disease, and it was used by some in the media as further supposed evidence to bash the HIV and gay communities.
Simple hygiene precautions, such as regular hand washing in hot soapy water, have been shown to prevent many bugs being transmitted and paying attention to surfaces and cleaning computer keyboards regularly can help prevent many nasty bugs being passed on.

A top HIV doctor told PN: “Safer sex advice is simple and stops most sexually transmitted infections. Ninety nine per cent of HIV transmissions can be stopped simply by using condoms.

“Simple hand cleaning hygiene and being careful with foods prevents most infections. But don’t eat from the finger buffet at an orgy.”