Objective: Investigate the effect of symbiotic on the recovery of bowel atrophy and bacterial translocation (BT) induced by protein malnutrition (PM) in rats.Methods: Rats were fed protein-deficient diet (maize) or the standard diet (standard rat chow) for 15 days. On day 10, rats fed with the protein-deficient diet were subdivided into three groups for reconstitution with protein-rich diet and Symbiotic. Milk-MTZ group, received milk+Metronidazole for 5 days and Symbiotic group, fed with some diet and probiotics-oligofructosaccharide for 5 days. Body weight was monitored daily, and all animals were sacrificed on day 15, and intestinal microflora and bacterial translocation (BT) to mesenteric lymph nodes (MLN) were evaluated. Histological studies were carried out to evaluate villi length and intra epithelial lymphocyte (IEL) infiltration.Results: Our results show the symbiotic group (n=6) having the greater gain in body weight (12% increase) than milk-MTZ-fed group (n=6, 0.61 % increase). Overgrowth of Enterobacteria in protein-deficient diet rats was higher than in controls (p<0.0001); whereas, significantly decreasing in symbiotic fed group (p<0.0001). There was no significant difference in bacterial translocation between rats fed protein-deficient diet and those fed symbiotic rich diet. However, gut mucosa recovery was greater in symbiotic group (49.24 %).Conclusion: Our data suggests that symbiotic-rich diet induces an important gain in weight and leads to better recovery of gut mucosa, but without altering bacterial translocation rate induced by the protein-deficient diet.Â
