One of the more commonly used methods for combating bacterial infection and general health disturbances in the body includes the use of probiotic therapy. Probiotics are a natural health food or supplement that help restore the balance of healthy bacteria or flora in the human body (Chen & Walker, 2005)
The prevalence of antibiotic resistance has stimulated much interest in the use of probiotics or live microbial supplements to combat infections otherwise resistant to traditional antibiotic therapy. In recent years overuse of antibiotics have stimulated antibiotic resistant strains of disease rendering antibiotics useless in many cases (Diped, 2003)
The researcher will also focus on the potential benefits of probiotic therapy in a general sense in an attempt to determine whether probiotic therapy may be useful in cases where antibiotic resistance has affected a patient's ability to combat disease. Section 3:Literature Review Studies now reveal that much of the bacteria previously susceptible to antibiotics now demonstrate some form of resistance; in some cases the same bacteria are demonstrating resistance to multiple antibiotics, presenting health care professionals new challenges (Levy, 1992)
Probiotic supplementation has proven in some situation ideal as an adjunct therapy but also as a single treatment for many bacterial infections and other imbalances in the body. Despite growing interest there is not much scientific data available at this time documenting the effects and benefits of probiotic use for combating microbes and bacterial infections, though there is evidence supporting their use in some disease situations (Ziebuhr, Xiao, Coulibaly, Schwarz & Dandekar, 2004)