Efficacy of probiotics on anxiety-A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The concept "psychobiotics" claims potential beneficial effect of probiotics on anxiety, whereas findings from clinical trials are inconsistent. Thus, a meta-analysis is needed to clarify the effect of probiotics on anxiety. METHODS: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing the effect of probiotics on anxiety were systematically retrieved from online databases and manually screened for references of relevant published literature through September 1, 2017. Standardized mean difference in change from baseline of anxiety rating scales between probiotics groups and placebo groups was selected as the main effect index. Subgroup analyses were conducted with respect to overall health status of the sample, existence of gastrointestinal symptoms, strains of flora, trial duration, and risk of bias assessment. Publication bias was evaluated by funnel plot and Egger's test. The reliability of the result was assessed by leave-one-out sensitivity analysis. RESULTS: Twelve studies with 1,551 subjects (871 in probiotics group and 680 in control group) were included. All the studies were rated as low or moderate risk of bias. The meta-analysis and subgroup analyses all showed no significant difference between probiotics and placebo in alleviating anxiety symptoms. The Egger's test revealed no evidence of significant publication bias. Sensitivity analysis showed that leaving out one study would result in marginal significance. CONCLUSIONS: The evidence for the efficacy of probiotics in alleviating anxiety, as presented in currently published RCTs, is insufficient. More reliable evidence from clinical trials is needed before a case can be made for promoting the use of probiotics for alleviating anxiety.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.047 | 0.096 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.005 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.030 | 0.074 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.015 | 0.010 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".