During pregnancy there are several supplements that show clear benefit in addition to a healthy non-junk food diet:  Vitamin D, Fish Oils (prefer high DHA) and probiotics.

Here are a few articles posted in the past about the benefits of probiotics during pregnancy:

• Reduce infant dermatitis
• Reduce atopic dermatitis
• Reduces incidences of eczema
• Given to infants it can reduce colic

A recent literature review of probiotics during pregnancy evaluated all the gold standard studies which means they are double-blind, placebo controlled.    What they found was that probiotics given during pregnancy reduced the incidence of eczema in their children from ages 2-7 years old.   What is interested is that it was only for the lactobacillus genus and not other strains such as bifidobacteria or products that contained a mixture of strains. Read the rest of this entry

J Toxicol Environ Health A. 2008;71(21):1415-29.
Splenda alters gut microflora and increases intestinal p-glycoprotein and cytochrome p-450 in male rats.Abou-Donia MB, El-Masry EM, Abdel-Rahman AA, McLendon RE, Schiffman SS.

Department of Pharmacology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham,
North Carolina 27708, USA. donia@duke.edu

Splenda is comprised of the high-potency artificial sweetener sucralose (1.1%) and the fillers maltodextrin and glucose. Splenda was administered by oral gavage at 100, 300, 500, or 1000 mg/kg to male Sprague-Dawley rats for 12-wk, during which fecal samples were collected weekly for bacterial analysis and measurement of fecal pH. After 12-wk, half of the animals from each treatment group were sacrificed to determine the intestinal expression of the membrane efflux transporter P-glycoprotein (P-gp) and the cytochrome P-450 (CYP) metabolism system by Western blot. The remaining animals were allowed to recover for anadditional 12-wk, and further assessments of fecal microflora, fecal pH,
and expression of P-gp and CYP were determined. At the end of the 12-wktreatment period, the numbers of total anaerobes, bifidobacteria,lactobacilli, Bacteroides, clostridia, and total aerobic bacteria were significantly decreased; however, there was no significant treatment effect on enterobacteria. Splenda also increased fecal pH and enhanced the expression of P-gp by 2.43-fold, CYP3A4 by 2.51-fold, and CYP2D1 by 3.49-fold. Following the 12-wk recovery period, only the total anaerobes
and bifidobacteria remained significantly depressed, whereas pH values, P-gp, and CYP3A4 and CYP2D1 remained elevated. These changes occurred at Splenda dosages that contained sucralose at 1.1-11 mg/kg (the US FDA Acceptable Daily Intake for sucralose is 5 mg/kg). Evidence indicates
that a 12-wk administration of Splenda exerted numerous adverse effects, including (1) reduction in beneficial fecal microflora, (2) increased fecal pH, and (3) enhanced expression levels of P-gp, CYP3A4, and CYP2D1, which are known to limit the bioavailability of orally administered drugs. Read the rest of this entry

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) seems to be an all too common complaint of so many people. The three typical ways IBS presents itself is: constipation dominant (IBS-C), diarrhea dominant (IBS-D) or alternating diarrhea and constipation (IBS). I’m going to generalize here, but Read the rest of this entry