Can probiotics reduce psoriatic arthritis symptoms? Latest findings

Probiotics are live yeasts and bacteria promoted as having various health benefits. Usually added to yoghurts or taken as food supplements, they are often described as “good bacteria”. Individuals with all sorts of medical issues – and healthy people too – buy probiotics believing they will improve their health.

Now a group of researchers has looked at if probiotics can make a difference to people with psoriatic arthritis and report their findings in ACR Open Rheumatology. They were interested because some experts think that probiotics may mediate inflammation through altering the gut microbiome. Spondyloarthropathies have gut inflammation associated with inflammatory disease that may benefit from probiotic use.

They looked at data from a US National Databank for Rheumatic Diseases and found that:

• In 2008 less than 1% of the participants used probiotics, which increased to 7% in 2018;
• Probiotic users are more likely to be white women with higher education, income, and supplement use;
• Scores of pain and function were not statistically impacted by taking probiotics.

“We found increasing probiotic use in patients with psoriatic arthritis and important differences between users and nonusers,” the research group concludes. “After accounting for these differences, we found no statistical difference in health outcomes after probiotic use.”

Click here to read the original research.

For more on diet and arthritis click here.

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