Probiotics: systemic antiviral effect

With all the recommendations by CFS doctors to use probiotics, and having some digestive issues, I decided I better start taking some myself. Knowing that they have to remain refrigerated, I purchased a probiotic supplement in person at a health food store from the refrigerated section (I selected NOW brand, 8 billion CFU which contains both acidophilus and bifidus) and began taking them. The suggested dose is one capsule up to twice per day, but I decided to take double that amount.

And I was quite surprised that my "antiviral die off effect" symptoms all increased significantly! Over the past month or two they had dissipated to almost nothing, so I was afraid my treatment wasn't working anymore. But just the second day on probiotics they all came back in full force (but still not quite as severe as in the beginning of my treatment). Headache, neck pain, jaw joint popping, other joint issues, etc. I was perplexed: were the probiotics helping my immune system? Or was something bad happening? Maybe the bacteria from the probiotics were getting into my bloodstream where they weren't supposed to be? I didn't know, but I did do some googling and some searching of pubmed for more information.

I found three very interesting studies.

The first was a placebo controlled trial that examined infants with eczema. It found that probiotic supplementation increased interferon (one of the body's antiviral defenses) and increased the Th1/Th2 ratio of the immune system, which is definitely of interest in CFS, because among CFS doctors and researchers there seems to be a consensus that CFS patients have a low Th1/Th2 ratio. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19298231)

In another placebo controlled study, participants had a larger immune antibody response to a polio vaccine when given probiotics beforehand. The conclusion was that the probiotics "induce an immunologic response that may provide enhanced systemic protection of cells from virus infections by increasing production of virus neutralizing antibodies." (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15578195)

The final article, which is probably the one that relates to CFS the most, is a study in which probiotics were used to treat "fatigued athletes." It was not placebo controlled, but did confirm certain findings of earlier studies. The fatigued athletes were found to have had abnormally low interferon levels and manifestations of Epstein-Barr reactivation, with viral shedding in their saliva. After treatment with 20 billion CFU of acidophilus daily for 30 days, the blood level of interferon gamma increased to normal and EBV virus shedding decreased. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16556792). The full text of this article is available for free.

While speaking of interferon, it's worthy to note that Ampligen, the drug that will hopefully soon be the first FDA approved treatment for CFS, is an interferon inducer. The fatigued athlete study and some other published articles suggest that probiotics stimulate toll-like receptors (TLRs), which is also what Ampligen acts on.

So there you have it. I already knew of the many beneficial effects of probiotics, but I did not know they could have such major systemic antiviral effect. It's the exact kind of effect I need, especially since Avemar and beta glucan seem to not have done much for me. Probiotics will have a permanent and prominent place in my antiviral immunomodulatory arsenal of supplements. I've decided to actually take three capsules, three times per day.