1. Efficacy of probiotic treatment as post-exposure prophylaxis for COVID-19: A double-blind, Placebo-Controlled Randomized trial.
- Author
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Wischmeyer, Paul E., Tang, Helen, Ren, Yi, Bohannon, Lauren, Jiang, Danting, Bergens, Matthew, Ramirez, Zeni E., Andermann, Tessa M., Messina, Julia A., Sung, Julia A., Jensen, David, Jung, Sin-Ho, Artica, Alexandra, Britt, Anne, Bush, Amy, Johnson, Ernaya, Lew, Meagan V., Winthrop, Hilary, Pamanes, Claudia, and Racioppi, Alessandro
- Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose unprecedented challenges to worldwide health. While vaccines are effective, additional strategies to mitigate the spread/severity of COVID-19 continue to be needed. Emerging evidence suggests susceptibility to respiratory tract infections in healthy subjects can be reduced by probiotic interventions; thus, probiotics may be a low-risk, low-cost, and easily implementable modality to reduce risk of COVID-19. In this initial study, we conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial across the United States testing probiotic Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG) as postexposure prophylaxis for COVID-19 in 182 participants who had household exposure to someone with confirmed COVID-19 diagnosed within ≤7 days. Participants were randomized to receive oral LGG or placebo for 28 days. The primary outcome was development of illness symptoms within 28 days of COVID-19 exposure. Stool was collected to evaluate microbiome changes. Intention-to-treat analysis showed LGG treatment led to a lower likelihood of developing illness symptoms versus placebo (26.4 % vs. 42.9 %, p = 0.02). Further, LGG was associated with a statistically significant reduction in COVID-19 diagnosis (log rank, p = 0.049) via time-to-event analysis. Overall incidence of COVID-19 diagnosis did not significantly differ between LGG and placebo groups (8.8 % vs. 15.4 %, p = 0.17). This data suggests LGG is associated with prolonged time to COVID-19 infection, reduced incidence of illness symptoms, and gut microbiome changes when used as prophylaxis ≤7 days post-COVID-19 exposure, but not overall incidence. This initial work may inform future COVID-19 prevention studies worldwide, particularly in developing nations where Lacticaseibacillus probiotics have previously been utilized to reduce other non-COVID infectious-morbidity. ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04399252, Date: 22/05/2020. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04399252. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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