Submitted:
20 June 2020
Posted:
21 June 2020
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Abstract
Background: Probiotics can provide health benefits to an individual by regulation of the immune system. Many clinical trials have found that probiotics can prevent upper respiratory tracts infections. Aim: To perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of available trials to investigate the effectiveness of probiotics in the prevention of upper respiratory tract infections in individuals of all ages. Conclusion: Probiotics were found to be better in reducing the number of participants who experienced acute URTI, the average duration per episode of acute URTI, use of antibiotics in URTI related cases and absence due to URTI. Side effects were found to be minor, making probiotics a good candidate for clinical use. This shows that probiotics are effective in preventing acute URTIs. However, due to limited studies and small sample size, the results are subjected to bias and should be interpreted with care.
Keywords:
probiotic
; upper respiratory tract infection (URTI)
; infection
; prevention
; common cold
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.
