Drinking probiotic yoghurt drinks can help to reduce sickness associated with the hospital superbug Clostridium difficile and the side-effects of antibiotics, a study suggests.

Up to a quarter of patients experience diarrhoea, including C.difficile-associated diarrhoea, as a complication of treatment with antibiotics in hospital. But drinks containing the probiotic bacteria Lactobacillus helped to reduce the sickness, cut length of stay in hospital and could save the NHS money, researchers from Imperial College, London, said.

The study is published online by the British Medical Journal today. It involved 135 people from three London hospitals all aged over 50 and split at random into two groups.

One was given Actimel, a commercially available probiotic yoghurt drink, while the other received a sterile milk-shake with no active ingredients. Neither group knew which drink they had received.

Drinks were given twice a day while the patients received antibiotic therapy and continued for one week after the medication stopped.

Of the 113 patients contacted for follow-up, only 12 per cent of those taking probiotic drinks developed antibiotic-associated diarrhoea, compared with 34 per cent of the other group. None of the probiotic group developed C.difficile-associated diarrhoea, compared with 17 per cent of the other group.

The researchers estimate the cost of supplying the probiotic drink to prevent one case of C.difficile-associated diarrhoea to be £60. Treating one case can cost £4,000.

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