LGG On The Move – Staying Regular while Travelling

We all love to travel. Going on holiday can bring a much needed break, not to mention the opportunity to explore new cultures, try new foods, and experience new things that we could never experience at home. Many people have made some of their most unforgettable memories whilst on holiday.

But for anyone travelling overseas, maintaining regularity and digestive comfort can sometimes be a challenge. With foods the gut isn’t used to, bacteria your body hasn’t encountered before, and water with different microbes to the water at home, being overseas can bring some real challenges for the body, and the further afield you go, the more intensive those challenges can be. We’ve all been abroad at some point and eaten something that didn’t agree with us!

To help maintain a balance many have opted to take probiotics as they travel, keeping their digestive system regular and avoiding any unwanted surprises. But what is the best option? What’s had the most research? And what did scientists find when they did this research?

Enter LGG. Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG) has been studied extensively for its role in supporting digestive stability during travel, helping to maintain a balanced gut environment when exposed to new bacteria or dietary changes, and calming the symptoms when people have experienced them. The research in this area is very promising to say the least.

What’s more, most of the studies conducted are double blind randomised control trials, maintaining the gold standard in medical research, and ensuring results that come from a fair test, for science we can trust.

So what did the studies show?

Fewer episodes of traveller’s digestive upset

In one landmark clinical trial involving 756 Finnish travellers to southern Turkey, those who took LGG daily throughout their trip were found to have experienced serious digestive upset at a lower rate. The LGG group experienced diarrhoea at a rate of 41%, compared to 46.5% in the placebo group, indicating a trend that LGG may have a positive effect on preventing traveller’s diarrhoea.

Whilst this seems like a small difference, it’s important to remember that these participants only started taking the probiotic when they went away. The numbers may have been very different had they taken the probiotic for a few months beforehand, giving the bacterium time to settle in and colonise the gut.

Consistent findings in other parts of the world

It wasn’t just a Finnish study that had these results, similar results were seen in other clinical studies around the world.

In one large American study, 245 travellers visiting Mexico took LGG or a placebo for two weeks. Those who took LGG experienced traveller’s diarrhoea at a rate of 3.9% compared to the 7.4% of the placebo group. When taken in comparison, these results show that those on LGG were almost half as likely to suffer traveller’s diarrhoea, a strong result! These results reinforce what the Finnish study had found, that LGG demonstrates the potential the help reduce the likelihood of digestive upset whilst travelling.

Another study followed Danish travellers to Egypt, a challenging environment for the uninitiated gut, and supplemented them with a mixture of lactobacilli, including LGG. It found that only 43% of the probiotic group suffered TD, whilst 71% of the control group experienced it. Whilst a mix of lactobacilli, and not exclusively LGG was used, this does demonstrate this microbial family’s powerful ability to support the gut, and of course amongst lactobacilli, LGG can boast a breadth of scientific research that is hard to beat!

The big picture – A meta-analysis

A meta-analysis was conducted in 2007 to pool the results of probiotic (including LGG) trials into traveller’s diarrhoea, helping to step away from any one study and look at the big picture, and the results were encouraging to say the least. The results found that across studies the risk of traveller’s diarrhoea was reduced by some 15% in those taking the probiotics.

Whilst this applies to other microbes as well as LGG, it does demonstrate the potential that these microbes can have to help keep the digestive system regulated and calm when abroad.

So how does it work?

Researchers believe LGG helps the gut stay stable by supporting the natural balance of bacteria that line the intestines.

When travelling, the digestive system is suddenly exposed to new microbial environments and foods, which can disrupt that balance, introduce new bacteria, or encourage existing bacteria to grow faster than they usually would.

LGG appears to strengthen the gut’s natural defences and help maintain microbial stability during these periods of change, making the digestive system more resilient to sudden changes, and helping to reduce their impact.

In studies where stool samples were collected, LGG was shown to survive its journey through the stomach and temporarily colonise the gut, providing a supportive presence anywhere in the digestive system as opposed to only the earliest sections. This is important as it shows that LGG, once in your gut, can survive all the way through to the end, ensuring that the impact it has can happen anywhere along the way.

So how does this affect me?

Across multiple gold-standard human trials, Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG has been shown to help maintain a stable and balanced digestive system during travel, reducing the likelihood of digestive upset and shortening its duration when it does occur. Consistent results that show LGG reduced incidence of traveller’s diarrhoea, showed an ability to survive the full digestive process through to the end, and had no safety concerns or adverse effects at all!

It’s important to note as well that these studies gave their participants probiotics while travelling, not as part of a long term routine. Most probiotic manufacturers, and we at BetterGuts are included, will recommend that probiotics are taken as part of a daily routine in the long term, not as a short term solution. This way they can have time to colonise the gut, settle into an equilibrium with your other gut bacteria, and get to work. Your gut is like a rainforest, and the bacteria are the animals, so any change is slow and takes time. It would be very interesting to see these studies conducted in people who had taken the probiotic for a few months before travelling!

So whether you’re travelling for business, adventure, or relaxation, Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG has been scientifically studied in multiple studies in the context of travel-related digestive challenges. Travelling can be an amazing experience, empowering us to explore new places, cultures, foods and experiences, and through this LGG has certainly shown potential to help maintain digestive balance and reduce the likelihood of any unwanted surprises.

References (the science) – Don’t just take our word for it:

Oksanen, P., Salminen, S., Saxelin, M., et al. (1990) *Prevention of traveller’s diarrhoea by Lactobacillus GG. Annals of Medicine, 22(1), 53–56. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2184847/
Hilton, E., Kolakowski, P., Singer, C., et al. (1992) Lactobacillus GG and traveller’s diarrhoea: a randomized double-blind study. Journal of Travel Medicine, 1(4), 206–209. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9815476/
Black, F.T., Andersen, P.L., Orskov, J., et al. (1989) Prophylactic efficacy of Lactobacillus GG on traveller’s diarrhoea. Digestive Diseases and Sciences, 34(9), 1397–1400. Available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-73772-5_70
McFarland, L.V. (2007) ‘Meta-analysis of probiotics for the prevention of traveller’s diarrhoea’, Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease, 5(2), pp. 97–105. doi:10.1016/j.tmaid.2005.10.003. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17298915/