Development of Nutritional Supplements to Reduce the Incidence and Severity of Diarrhea

Despite medical advances, infectious diarrheas continue to afflict most military personnel deployed overseas, particularly to battlefield settings, and reduce force size and efficiency. Because many pathogens causing diarrhea are resistant to antibiotics, there is a need for alternative therapeutics that will reduce the incidence and severity of diarrhea. Phase 1 work by RKB Technologies will test the concept that the incidence and severity of diarrhea can be reduced by chronic consumption of a food product (nutritional supplement) that includes a combination of agents that reduce densities of pathogens and enhance host immune functions. This will be accomplished using animal models of infectious diarrhea, and will focus on a food product with probiotics and prebiotics as antidiarrheal agents. A related objective is to determine if heat-killed probiotics or soluble factors that are secreted during culture can be used instead of viable bacteria, which are not compatible with the processing and long-term storage of MREs. Phase 2 work will evaluate other probiotics and prebiotics, and determine if efficacy can be increased by including additional components that confer other functional properties. The goal is to provide the military with a food product that increases resistance to infectious agents of diarrhea and other diseases