Current medical management consists of aminosalicylates, steroids, and immunosuppressants and biologics. A significant proportion of patients do not tolerate existing treatments because of their adverse effects and about 20% to 30% of patients fail to respond to the drugs given for induction of remission. Consequently, new alternatives for the treatment of UC constantly are being sought.

VSL #3 study:

In an open-label study including patients with mild-to-moderately active UC who failed to respond to mesalamine or corticosteroids, Bibiloni et al reported induction of remission in 63% at 6 weeks using VSL #3. These results were higher than ours, but the difference perhaps can be attributed to the study’s inclusion of concomitant medication use, such as corticosteroids and rectal therapies, both of which were excluded from our study. The lack of placebo control also may have contributed to the disparity in the 2 studies. In addition, another study reported similar results to ours, with a combination of low-dose balsalazide and VSL #3 resulting in improvements in treatment of mild-to-moderate UC when compared with balsalazide alone or mesalamine alone.

However, these studies had methodologic limitations such as small size; inadequate power to detect a statistically significant difference; problems in concealment of allocation, generation of random allocation, and double-blinding procedures; and use of concomitant therapies.

Review:

In the recent Cochrane review, investigators concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to support the use of probiotics in patients with active UC.Our study builds on this earlier work while paying particular attention to methodologic standards, and clearly indicates that there is a promising role for therapeutic use of the probiotic in the treatment of mild-to-moderate UC. In the placebo group, about 20% of the patients were lost to follow-up evaluation, which is rather high for a randomized trial. This was a limitation of this study.

In the indocetamide model of colitis, pretreatment either withLactobacillus GG or VSL #3 significantly decreased the severity of colonic damage, as indicated by decreased myeloperoxidase activity and nitric oxide synthase activity. Rachmilewitz et al showed that VSL #3 significantly decreased colonic disease activity score, myeloperoxidase activity, and histologic scores in chronic dextran sulfate sodium–induced colitis.

In conclusion, VSL #3 led to a 50% decrease in UCDAI at week 6 and clinical remission at week 12 in significantly more patients with mild-to-moderately active UC than placebo.

VSL #3 Probiotics are not required to complete the same rigorous testing as prescription medications. Customers can not be sure if the product they are getting will do the work. Label can claim anything, facts may proof otherwise. It is important to choosing a product with proven results and studies behind it.

What is VSL #3 Probiotic?

The press release goes on to explain that VSL #3 (VSL Pharmaceuticals) is a probiotic medical food for the dietary management of patients with ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome and ileal pouch.

Due to a big change, patients with milk allergies or lactose intolerance now are able safely take VSL #3 probiotics. Patients with corn allergies and previously used VSL 3 capsules or Sachets, may be concern, due to increased amount of corn starch added to make VSL 3 dairy-free.

Most of all demand for the VSL #3 brand continues and grows. As a result, as distributors we have more customers giving great feedback and recommending VSL #3 Brand to other customers.