CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 569Probiotics and Fermented FoodsPediatric health and respiratory diseasesHerbal Medicine Research Studies

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 91 of the 95 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Probiotics for preventing acute upper respiratory tract infections

Hao, Qiukui, Dong, Bi Rong, Wu, Taixiang·2015·Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd006895.pub3
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Probiotics may improve a person's health by regulating their immune function. Some trials have shown that probiotic strains can prevent respiratory infections. Even though the previous version of our review showed benefits of probiotics for acute upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs), several new studies have been published. OBJECTIVES: To assess the effectiveness and safety of probiotics (any specified strain or dose), compared with placebo, in the prevention of acute URTIs in people of all ages, at risk of acute URTIs. SEARCH METHODS: We searched CENTRAL (2014, Issue 6), MEDLINE (1950 to July week 3, 2014), EMBASE (1974 to July 2014), Web of Science (1900 to July 2014), the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, which includes the China Biological Medicine Database (from 1978 to July 2014), the Chinese Medicine Popular Science Literature Database (from 2000 to July 2014) and the Masters Degree Dissertation of Beijing Union Medical College Database (from 1981 to July 2014). We also searched the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) and ClinicalTrials.gov for completed and ongoing trials on 31 July 2014. SELECTION CRITERIA: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing probiotics with placebo to prevent acute URTIs. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors independently assessed the eligibility and quality of trials, and extracted data using the standard methodological procedures expected by The Cochrane Collaboration. MAIN RESULTS: We included 13 RCTs, although we could only extract data to meta-analyse 12 trials, which involved 3720 participants including children, adults (aged around 40 years) and older people. We found that probiotics were better than placebo when measuring the number of participants experiencing episodes of acute URTI (at least one episode: odds ratio (OR) 0.53; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.37 to 0.76, P value < 0.001, low quality evidence; at least three episodes: OR 0.53; 95% CI 0.36 to 0.80, P value = 0.002, low quality evidence); the mean duration of an episode of acute URTI (mean difference (MD) -1.89; 95% CI -2.03 to -1.75, P value < 0.001, low quality evidence); reduced antibiotic prescription rates for acute URTIs (OR 0.65; 95% CI 0.45 to 0.94, moderate quality evidence) and cold-related school absence (OR 0.10; 95% CI 0.02 to 0.47, very low quality evidence). Probiotics and placebo were similar when measuring the rate ratio of episodes of acute URTI (rate ratio 0.83; 95% CI 0.66 to 1.05, P value = 0.12, very low quality evidence) and adverse events (OR 0.88; 95% CI 0.65 to 1.19, P value = 0.40, low quality evidence). Side effects of probiotics were minor and gastrointestinal symptoms were the most common. We found that some subgroups had a high level of heterogeneity when we conducted pooled analyses and the evidence level was low or very low quality. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: Probiotics were better than placebo in reducing the number of participants experiencing episodes of acute URTI, the mean duration of an episode of acute URTI, antibiotic use and cold-related school absence. This indicates that probiotics may be more beneficial than placebo for preventing acute URTIs. However, the quality of the evidence was low or very low.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1002/14651858.cd006895.pub3

Cites

91 of 91 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Show all 95 references

4 of the 95 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 7

  1. Makino, 2010, Reducing the risk of infection in the elderly by dietary intake of yoghurt fermented with Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus OLL1073R-1, British Journal of Nutrition, 104, 998, 10.1017/S000711451000173X · DOI
  2. Pitkaranta A Hatakka K Blomgren K Pohjavuori S Korpela R Probiotics in prevention of acute otitis media in otitis prone children 8th International Symposium on Recent Advances in Otitis Media 2003
  3. Tajima, 1995, Pharmacokinetic, bacteriological, and clinical studies on SY5555 in children, Japanese Journal of Antibiotics, 48, 31
  4. Kollath, 1953, Nutrition and the tooth system, Deutsche Zahnarztliche Zeitschrift, 8, 7
  5. Lefebvre C Manheimer E Glanville J Chapter 6: Searching for studies In: Higgins JPT, Green S (editors). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions Version 5.1.0 [updated March 2011]. The Cochrane Collaboration, 2011. Available from www.cochrane-handbook.org
  6. The Nordic Cochrane Centre, The Cochrane Collaboration Review Manager (RevMan) 2014
  7. Wu, 2007, The concepts, design, practice and reports of allocation concealment and blinding, Chinese Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine, 7, 222

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 501–569 of 569

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Hao, Q., Dong, B. R., & Wu, T.
Affiliations
Sichuan University (CN)
ORCID
Hao, Qiukui
Venue
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2015-02-03
Issue
2
Pages
CD006895-CD006895
ISSN
  • 1361-6137 (ISSN-L)
  • 1465-1858
DOI
10.1002/14651858.cd006895.pub3
OpenAlex
W1957322304
Cited by
569
References
95
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 72 · 2021: 89 · 2020: 68 · 2019: 37 · 2018: 33 · 2017: 45 · 2016: 28 · 2015: 47
FWCI
6.54
Type
journal article
Language
en
Update notices
new_version (2022-08-24)
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Probiotics and Fermented Foods
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Pediatric health and respiratory diseases
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Complementary and alternative medicine › Herbal Medicine Research Studies
Keywords
probiotics, acute upper respiratory tract infection, infection control, immune function, Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, Saccharomyces boulardii, Lactobacillus reuteri, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus plantarum
MeSH terms
Acute Disease, Adult, Aged, Child, Female, Humans, Male, Respiratory Tract Infections, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, Probiotics

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review