A recent study suggests that the presence of certain gut bacteria, such as Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and Roseburia hominis, could predict the effectiveness of high-dose thiamine treatment in alleviating chronic fatigue in patients with quiescent inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). According to research published in Gastro Hep Advances, this discovery could pave the way for more targeted treatments for chronic fatigue in IBD patients. told by healio.
“Recent studies that investigated factors contributing to chronic fatigue in IBD focused on the gut-brain axis and the associated microbiota,” wrote Sandra Bermúdez-Sánchez, MSc, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at the National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark, and her colleagues. In earlier research, high-dose thiamine had shown significant improvement in chronic fatigue symptoms for patients with IBD, even when their blood thiamine levels were normal.
To further investigate this connection, the researchers conducted a study to explore potential pathways between gut microbiota and the positive effects of high-dose thiamine on chronic fatigue in IBD patients. The study followed 40 patients with quiescent IBD and chronic fatigue, along with 20 control patients who had qIBD but no fatigue.
In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial, participants were randomly assigned to either high-dose oral thiamine (600-1,800 mg/day) or a placebo for four weeks, followed by a four-week washout period and a crossover to the other treatment. Fecal samples were collected at baseline and at the 4, 8, and 12-week marks to analyze microbiota composition and short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) concentrations. The severity of fatigue was measured using the IBD-Fatigue Questionnaire (IBD-FQ1). Report from News Medical.
The results showed no significant differences in overall microbiota composition or SCFA concentrations between patients with and without chronic fatigue. Similarly, thiamine treatment did not cause any noticeable changes in microbiota or SCFA levels. However, further analysis revealed that patients who showed improvement in fatigue had significantly higher levels of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and Roseburia hominis both before and after treatment compared to non-responders.
“We found no differences in gut microbiota between patients with qIBD with or without chronic fatigue,” the researchers noted. “However, the correlation between changes in IBD-FQ1 scores and the relative abundance of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii or Roseburia hominis suggests that these species may serve as predictors of thiamine treatment effectiveness for chronic fatigue. This may be because they are markers of better general gut health in patients who respond to high-dose thiamine.”
The study highlights the potential of gut microbiota as a tool for predicting treatment response, but the researchers stress that larger validation studies are needed before these insights can be applied in clinical settings. If further confirmed, these findings could lead to more personalized treatments for chronic fatigue in IBD patients, helping to improve the quality of life for those who suffer from this debilitating condition.
