Dietary patterns, digestive symptoms, and health-related quality of life in women reporting minor digestive symptoms.

OBJECTIVE: Digestive symptoms are reported to result from a wide range of dietary components. Dietary pattern analysis is a useful method when considering the entire diet, rather than individual foods or nutrients, providing an opportunity to take interactions into account. The aim of the present study was to investigate, using a dietary pattern approach, the relationship between diet, digestive symptoms, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in women reporting minor digestive symptoms. METHODS: Analysis was performed on dietary and digestive symptoms data collected in France. Women (N = 308, ages 18-60 y) reporting a bowel movement frequency within the normal range (3-21 stools/wk) but with minor digestive symptoms in the previous month were studied. Dietary data was collected using three 24-h recalls. K-means was used to divide the dietary data into clusters. The frequency of digestive symptoms (abdominal discomfort or pain, bloating, flatulence, borborygmi) and bowel movements were evaluated over a 2-wk period. HRQoL was also assessed. RESULTS: Four dietary clusters were identified and characterized as unhealthy, balance, healthy, and convenience. No differences were found in the frequency of digestive symptoms according to dietary cluster, except for flatulence (P = 0.030), which was more prevalent in the unhealthy and convenience clusters. No significant differences were observed in HRQoL according to dietary clusters. CONCLUSIONS: Results from the present study demonstrated that even within a relatively homogeneous sample of French women, distinct dietary patterns can be identified but without significant differences in digestive symptoms (except for flatulence) or HRQoL.

Consumption of fermented milk product with probiotic modulates brain activity.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Changes in gut microbiota have been reported to alter signaling mechanisms, emotional behavior, and visceral nociceptive reflexes in rodents. However, alteration of the intestinal microbiota with antibiotics or probiotics has not been shown to produce these changes in humans. We investigated whether consumption of a fermented milk product with probiotic (FMPP) for 4 weeks by healthy women altered brain intrinsic connectivity or responses to emotional attention tasks. METHODS: Healthy women with no gastrointestinal or psychiatric symptoms were randomly assigned to groups given FMPP (n = 12), a nonfermented milk product (n = 11, controls), or no intervention (n = 13) twice daily for 4 weeks. The FMPP contained Bifidobacterium animalis subsp Lactis, Streptococcus thermophiles, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, and Lactococcus lactis subsp Lactis. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging before and after the intervention to measure brain response to an emotional faces attention task and resting brain activity. Multivariate and region of interest analyses were performed. RESULTS: FMPP intake was associated with reduced task-related response of a distributed functional network (49% cross-block covariance; P = .004) containing affective, viscerosensory, and somatosensory cortices. Alterations in intrinsic activity of resting brain indicated that ingestion of FMPP was associated with changes in midbrain connectivity, which could explain the observed differences in activity during the task. CONCLUSIONS: Four-week intake of an FMPP by healthy women affected activity of brain regions that control central processing of emotion and sensation.