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Fermented milk containing Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota reduces incidence of hard or lumpy stools in healthy

Takafumi Sakai1, Hiroshi Makino, Eiji Ishikawa

  • 1Yakult Honsha European Research Center for Microbiology ESVZ, wijnaarde, Belgium. takafumi.sakai@yher.be

International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition
|February 17, 2011
PubMed

The objective of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of fermented milk containing Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota (LcS) in a healthy population. Healthy subjects with Bristol Stool Form Scale (BS) score < 3.0 were randomized to fermented milk treatment for 3 weeks or non-intervention control. The primary endpoint was the proportion of subjects that produced hard or lumpy stools (HLS) ≥ 25% of bowel movements (H-HLS). Secondary endpoints included changes in BS score, constipation-related symptom scores and stool parameters. Efficacy was analyzed in 39 subjects. After 3 weeks of treatment the proportion of H-HLS subjects had significantly decreased from 73.7% to 36.8%, whereas in the control group the proportion had increased from 75.0% to 85.0% during the same period (P = 0.002). The BS score was significantly improved after the treatment compared with the control (P < 0.001). In conclusion, daily consumption of fermented milk containing LcS reduced the incidence of HLS.

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