Question submitted by the audience in our recent webinar: What’s Feeding Those Seizures? An Update On Refractory Canine Epilepsy And The Potential Link to Gastrointestinal Health:
My dog, who has meningeoencephalitis and seizures, currently has recurrent diarrhea, bacterial overgrowth, and low folate. We are supplementing with folic acid and are going to begin Visbiome this week. It has 4 strains of lactobacillus and 4 other strains of bacteria. Do you think that only the lactobacillus is what we need?
Answer by: Karen R. Muñana, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Neurology):
Probiotics often contain a mix of potentially beneficial organisms, including several strains of Lactobacillus as well as other organisms. The studies that have been performed on the use of probiotics as a treatment for gastrointestinal disease have not evaluated the specific organism(s) responsible for the beneficial effect. Consequently, at this time we cannot say that Lactobacillus is solely responsible for the beneficial effect of probiotics on gastrointestinal health in dogs. However, I believe that some of the basic research that I presented in the webinar supports the theory that Lactobacillus may play an important role.
Related in VetVine: Probiotics and Label Accuracy of Commercial Products
