Does Probiotic Therapy Have Effect on Serum Calcium and Cholesterol Levels in Demyelinated Hippocampus?

Recently, the use of probiotics in preventing and treating the immune system diseases through changes in blood factors has attracted the attention of researchers. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of Lactobacillus plantarum and Bifidobacterium B94 on changes of blood factors, influencing the autoimmune system diseases.
The rats used in this study were divided into four groups (n=10 each), including control (saline), damage with Ethidium bromide (EB), L. plantarum and Bifidobacterium B94 treatment groups. In damage and treatment groups, a single dose of 3μL EB was directly injected into hippocampus of rats for inducing demyelization. Also, in control group, the same amount of saline was used. Then 2×108 probiotic bacteria were administered by gavage for 28 days. Then serum calcium and cholesterol levels were measured. Data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA and Tukey post-hoc tests (p≤ .05).
The results showed that level of blood serum calcium increased insignificantly in the L. plantarum and Bifidobacterium B94 treatment groups compared to control group. Also, the level of blood serum cholesterol decreased insignificantly in both treatment groups compared to control group.
Probiotics are used for preventing and treating some of the common autoimmune diseases such as MS. Previous studies showed that probiotics affects some of the blood parameters such as calcium and cholesterol while decrease or increase in these parameters is effective in the improvement of MS. Although no significant finding has been obtained in some of these studies, they have almost confirmed the recommendation of probiotic consumption.