Travelers diarrhea can be treated with probiotics.
Lucky you! You're off to some far flung exotic land with your wallet strapped to your body and your fingers crossed that you don't go down with travelers' diarrhea.
Or traveller's diarrhea if you like it spelt that way - either way, you'll still be running just as fast for the nearest toilet!
It mostly strikes people from the industrialised countries who travel to tropical and semi-tropical parts of the world and happens when pathogens such as Escherichia coli gain a foothold in the intestinal tract of our unsuspecting traveler. Diarrhea strikes and a miserable few days follow!
As the pathogens are usually of bacterial origins, it means that antibacterials such as rifaximin are effective if you prefer a more conventional diarrhea cure than probiotics offer.
Saccharomyces boulardii looks like the star runner against traveler diarrhea. This is a yeast that was "discovered" on Indochinese lychee fruit when it was noted that the local people made a popular medicine from them for the treatment of diarrhea.2 It is now widely available in European, African and South American countries.
It has performed well through several trials3 and is available as Florastor.
It should not be taken by immunsuppressed people or if you're allergic to yeast.
A number of probiotics such as Lactobacillus GG, Lactobacillus plantarum 299v and Lactobacillus reuteri have trialled successfully against diarrhea in general but this does not mean they can do the job against the specific bugs that lurk on the highways and byways of your adventure package tour.
So - next time I get to travel somewhere exotic where I suspect a few of these bugs might be hanging out ready to become troublesome squatters in my gastrointestinal tract - this is MY plan of action.
REFERENCES
1.DuPont HL. Travellers' diarrhoea: contemporary approaches to therapy and prevention. Drugs 2006; 66(3):303-14
2.DuPont HL, Jiang ZD et al. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of rifaximin to prevent travelers' diarrhea. Ann Intern Med 2005 May 17;142(10):805-12
3.Kollaritsch H, Holst H, Grobara P, Wiedermann G. Prevention of traveler's diarrhea with Saccharomyces boulardii. Results of a placebo controlled double-blind study. (In translation from German) Fortschr Med 1993 March 30;111(9):152-6
Measures pH in the correct range for women's health