Case 2: What really happened

Case 2 is in fact a real-life case. In search of a new treatment for severe acute pancreatitis clinical researchers evaluated the results of a number of animal studies (in rats and dogs) in which experimentally induced acute pancreatic was treated with probiotics. The number of animals was low and the design of these studies varied: different probiotic strains were used, the probiotics were administered either before or after the induction of acute pancreatitis and in most (but not all) animal studies the administration of probiotics was done in the stomach. These observations made it difficult to make firm conclusions on the beneficial effects of probiotics in experimental induced pancreatitis.