Effectiveness of Probiotics to Treat End Stage Renal Disease

This study is a single-centre, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised trial. Participants will undergo a 2 week run-in period, followed by randomisation to either probiotics supplements or placebo for 6 months. The study population are hemodialysis patients from Dialysis Department in First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University. The Dialysis Department have 400 patients who regularly come to receive dialysis therapy three times a week.It's relatively easy for us to follow up and collect data.Patients who meet the criteria and are able to provide informed consent will be recruited.Then computer-generated randomisation of participants to treatment order will be undertaken by an external statistical consultant. This process of allocation will conceal the randomisation order to researchers and participants. In addition, the supplements will be packed off-site with a generic label.

After randomization,baseline data will be collected and all participants will undergo face-to-face dietary education with a dietitian, incorporating standard hemodialysis education during the first week of run-in.In the week following, and throughout the intervention, patients will be encouraged to maintain stable protein and fibre intakes, with specific attention to maintaining the same sources of these nutrients.Participants' dietary intakes during the study will be assessed every month using a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire. And when the trial starts, questionnaires and biological samples will be performed and collected at the corresponding time. All serious adverse events will be reported to the ethics committee, whether deemed to be intervention related or not. Adherence to supplements will be measured by pill count every two weeks.

This study is an explorative clinical trial.And in the absence of any data about the effect of probiotics on hemodialysis patients intestinal and serum microbiota,sample size can't be calculated.Data will be reported as s mean±SD if normally distributed and as median(25-75% percentiles) if not. The Shapiro-Wilk test is performed to assess whether data are normally distributed. Statistical comparisons of normally distributed data are performed using Student's t-test. Mann-Whitney U-test is used to compare the rank variables measuring gastrointestinal symptoms in probiotics and placebo groups. The threshold for statistical significance is at p values <0.05. And an external statistical consultant from our Clinical Research Center will be involved in the data validation and analysis activities.

Inclusion criteria

• maintenance hemodialysis patients(MHP),dialysis age>3 months;
• signed informed consent.

Exclusion criteria

• intolerance to whole milk and dairy products;
• patients with kidney transplant, with severe infections, sever heart disease and liver disease, malignancy, autoimmune disorders, severe malnutrition, or clinical conditions requiring artificial feeding;
• pregnant or nursing women;
• patients with known gastro-intestinal disease (i.e.,inflammatory bowel disease,crohn's disease,ulcerative colitis),receiving or have received radiation to the bowel or large bowel resection;
• use of antibiotics, prebiotics or probiotics in the past 4 weeks;