Friendly Bacteria Delay the Progress of Kidney Disease

A new formulation of specially developed strains of bacteria could help improve the quality of life for chronic kidney failure (CKF) patients by possibly delaying the progression of their condition into End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD).

Kibow Biotics is an orally administered patented formulation consisting of three types of bacteria: Streptococcus thermophilus KB27, Lactobacillus acidophilus KB31, and Bifidobacterium longum KB35. These naturally occurring microbes (called probiotics) metabolize targeted uremic toxins in the gut and consume them as nutrients for their own growth. The bacteria are administered in a coated gel capsule in an orally consumable formulation. The microbes have a high affinity for the uremic toxins, helping to reduce bloodstream concentrations of urea, uric acid, creatinine, indoles and phenols, nitrosamines, and related uremic metabolites, while at the same time promoting normal healthy gut flora. The procedure is based on enteric dialysis, a process by which colon-friendly, nonpathogenic microbes consume toxins or metabolites. In a healthy patient, this process already occurs to a limited extent; however, when kidney health is impaired, the normal bowel flora cannot metabolize and clear the excess toxins left unprocessed by the kidney. When this occurs, administering ideal "cocktails” of generally recognized as safe (GRAS) status microbes specially screened and selected for their high affinity and capacity for utilization of uremic toxins helps remove the accumulated toxins diffusing from the blood into the bowel. Kibow Biotics is under development by Kibow Biotech (Pennsylvania, PA, USA), which is currently conducting a pilot-scale, double blind, randomized, crossover human clinical trial at six study sites in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, and Nigeria.

"We are extremely grateful to our scientific advisory board members who have guided and encouraged our R&D work over the past 10 years, supporting us in our belief that the elegant simplicity, cost savings, convenience, and effectiveness of our probiotic-based technology will have profound clinical implications for the management of CKF in both advanced and developing countries,” said Dr. Natarajan Ranganathan, key founder, VP (R&D) and interim CEO of Kibow Biotech.

Probiotics cannot replace dialysis, but the bacteria do have the ability to lower some of the uremic toxins that cause azotemia--a medical condition characterized by abnormal levels of urea, creatinine, various body waste compounds, and other nitrogen-rich compounds in the blood as a result of insufficient filtering of the blood by the kidneys. By reducing the level of uremic toxins in the intestinal tract, toxins are removed via the bowel as the microbes pass normally out of the large intestine.

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