May fermented Baltic Sea herring help in conditions of gut disorders, such as gastric catarrh and heartburn?

Background: It has been suggested that disruption of the gut microbiota can be significant with respect to pathological intestinal conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), gastric catarrh (GC), and heartburn (HB). Through history, an essential part of the colonization of the human gut took place by ingestion of food preserved by fermentation. The natural replenishment of microbes via food and beverage is today low because food is "sterilized" through boiling, broiling, and pasteurization. Modulating the gut rnicrobiota with fermented food products may hence be considered as a strategy to treat such conditions. Fermented Baltic Sea herring (FBSH) is an example of a Lactobacillus-fermented food product, which was tested in the present study. Methods: A 30-day open study was performed in 42 volunteers with IBS, GC, or HB. Volunteers were recruited by advertisements in daily newspapers. The volunteers were provided with gelatin capsules for the study, each containing approximately 100 mg freeze dried FBSH. They were also provided with forms that contained columns and rows for every test day where the volunteers were ask to fill in number of capsules taken, and to report possible improvements according to a 0-10 scale, where 10 stands for full recovery. Results: The most reported common disorder symptom was IBS and 7 of 14 of these volunteers reported recovery, with a mean recovery of 4.4. All of the 9 volunteers reported recovery from GC, with a mean recovery of 8.4. Five of 6 volunteers reported recovery from HB, with a mean recovery of 6.8. Conclusion: Although the present study is a small open study, the overall results are exciting and merits further studies in volunteers, ideally in a double-blind placebo-controlled manner