The most common cause of the stomach ulcers is bacterium Helicobacter pylori, which doctors usually try to treat with antibiotic therapy. But in 10-23 percent cases the treatment fails.
But according to a new study eating yogurt containing the beneficial bacteria Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium (AB-yogurt) before trying a second round of combo antibiotic therapy can improve its efficacy in eradicating residual H. pylori, the researchers found.
"The pretreatment can decrease the bacterial loads of H. pylori," Dr. Bor-Shyang Sheu from National Cheng Kung University Hospital in Tainan told Reuters Health.
Sheu and colleagues randomly assigned 138 patients, in whom the ulcer bug persisted after triple to quadruple-antibiotic therapy, with or without four preceding weeks of taking AB-yogurt daily.
The investigators report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that the eradication rate of H. pylori was 91 percent in the yogurt-plus-quadruple therapy group compared with 77 percent in quadruple therapy-only group.
