The C.A.M. Report
Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Fair, Balanced, and to the Point
  • About this web log

    This blog ran from 2006 to 2016 and was intended as an objective and dispassionate source of information on the latest CAM research. Since my background is in pharmacy and allopathic medicine, I view all CAM as advancing through the development pipeline to eventually become integrated into mainstream medical practice. Some will succeed while others fail. But all are treated fairly here.

  • About the author

    John Russo, Jr., PharmD, is president of The MedCom Resource, Inc. Previously, he was senior vice president of medical communications at www.Vicus.com, a complementary and alternative medicine website.

  • Common sense considerations

    The material on this weblog is for informational purposes. It is not medical advice or counsel. Be smart, consult your health professional before using CAM.

  • Recent Posts

  • Recent Comments

    Probiotics effective in infants with enterocolitis

    Necrotizing enterocolitis is a serious intestinal disorder. It affects 7% to 15% of very low-birth-weight (less than 1500-gram; 3.3 pound) infants. Death occurs in about 12 per 100,000 affected babies.

    A review published in The Lancet concludes, “Probiotics might reduce the risk.” Although important questions remain.

    First, the details.

    • 12 studies in 1393 infants were found.
    • 7 were good enough for combined re-analysis (meta-analysis) of the results.

    And the results.

    • Risk of sepsis did not differ between the probiotic and control treatment groups.
    • However, the risk of death was significantly reduced in the probiotic group.
    • And the time to when the infants could tolerate full feeding was significantly shorter in the probiotic group.

    The reviewers concluded “Probiotics might reduce the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm neonates with less than 33 weeks’ gestation [conception until birth].”

    Still to be answered.

    • Short- and long-term safety
    • Dose, duration, and the best probiotics to use.

    5/13/07 11:17 JR

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