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Opinion or narrative review

Review of Lactobacillus reuteri for gut disease: authors say well evidenced for infant colic

Peng and colleagues · Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2023

Original title: Lactobacillus reuteri in digestive system diseases: focus on clinical trials and mechanisms.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Points to benefit

The authors say L. reuteri is well evidenced for infant colic and can be an add-on for diarrhea, constipation and H. pylori. Evidence for belly pain, bowel disease and cancer is mostly from animals. No numbers given.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Opinion or narrative review
Who or what was studied
people and animals with gut diseases such as infant colic, diarrhea and constipation
What was tested
Review of Lactobacillus reuteri strains used for gut diseases
Who has a stake
No stake declared
No competing interests declared.
Journal
Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology, 2023
Source
PubMed record 37662007. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • –An opinion or narrative review: no new data, and no set method for choosing which studies to discuss.
  • ✓No competing interests declared.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

This paper is not on the ladder. It is a opinion or narrative review, and reviews and opinion pieces discuss studies that are already counted on the steps below.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: gut symptoms such as bloating and IBS

    9

    5 benefit, 2 mixed, 2 no difference

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    10

    4 benefit, 2 mixed, 4 no difference

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  4. Population studies

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Do probiotics improve gut health?”

Some strains may help some symptoms.

Confidence: low. Based on 28 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer
  • Quoted in “What we found”: Effects are strain-specific: one B. longum strain eased constipation while a version lacking the abfA genes did not, so results for one product do not carry over.

Other opinion on this question

None among the papers we read.

See all 28 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The two reads differed. The reviewer checked the abstract and kept the first read. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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