Research
Mixed
Administration of probiotics to critically ill patients with multiorgan failure or severe immunocompromise can increase bacterial translocation and cause sepsis, making it unsafe as a standard practice.
If you are critically ill, have multiorgan failure, or are in the ICU, do not take probiotics unless explicitly prescribed by your medical team. In these cases, probiotics can cause sepsis and death. Standard practice suggests avoiding them.
GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
In patients with multiorgan failure, the use of probiotics was shown to increase bacterial translocation, due to serious immunocompromised situation... jejunal administration of probiotics with prebiotic fiber (synbiotic) in severely ill patients may possibly have negative effects on intestinal perfusion, promoting multiorgan failure, bowel necrosis, and even death.
Why this rating
Based on reported cases of sepsis and necrosis in critically ill patients.
Source
Probiotics, prebiotics and amelioration of diseases
Yu‐Ling Tsai et al. · Journal of Biomedical Science · 2019
DOI 10.1186/s12929-018-0493-6
narrative_reviewCited 400×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Traditional probiotics and prebiotics do not show significant impact on the amelioration of chronic inflammation-related diseases in general, necessitating the development of next-generation, disease-targeted strains.Good
- Specific next-generation probiotics and synbiotics (e.g., VSL#3, E. coli Nissle 1917, specific Bifidobacterium strains) show promising or beneficial effects in treating Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC), unlike general probiotics.Moderate
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