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Benefits of Saccharomyces Boulardii

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Evidence-Based Benefits

  • AAD prevention — a Cochrane review (Szajewska & Kolodziej, 2015, 21 RCTs, n=4,780) found S. boulardii reduced AAD risk by 53% (RR 0.47) with NNT of 10
  • C. difficile prevention — McFarland (2010, meta-analysis, 5 RCTs, n=1,076) showed S. boulardii reduced C. difficile recurrence by 43% when used as adjunctive therapy with antibiotics
  • Acute diarrhea in children — Feizizadeh et al. (2014, meta-analysis, 22 RCTs, n=5,029) found S. boulardii reduced duration of acute diarrhea by approximately 1 day in children
  • Toxin degradation — S. boulardii secretes a 54-kDa serine protease that directly cleaves and inactivates C. difficile toxins A and B (Castagliuolo et al., 1999)

What the Research Says

S. boulardii has one of the strongest evidence bases among all probiotics. Its unique advantage as a yeast is complete resistance to antibacterial antibiotics, making it the ideal probiotic for concurrent use during antibiotic therapy. Multiple Cochrane and systematic reviews support its use for AAD prevention (NNT=10), C. difficile recurrence prevention, and acute pediatric diarrhea. The WHO recommends it as an adjunct for acute diarrhea management. Its mechanism involves direct toxin degradation, sIgA stimulation, and anti-inflammatory signaling — not competitive exclusion like bacterial probiotics.

Related Conditions

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Full Saccharomyces Boulardii Guide

References

  1. (). Systematic review with meta-analysis: Saccharomyces boulardii in the prevention of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea. Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics. DOI
  2. (). Systematic review and meta-analysis of Saccharomyces boulardii in adult patients. World Journal of Gastroenterology. DOI