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Randomized trial · measured the question itself

8-week trial in 229 adults with constipation: no clear difference from probiotic vs placebo

Cheng and colleagues · JAMA network open · 2024

Original title: Eight-Week Supplementation With Bifidobacterium lactis HN019 and Functional Constipation: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

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What the study found

No difference

Weekly complete spontaneous bowel movements rose 0.80 (95% CI, 0.54-1.05) with HN019 and 0.66 (95% CI, 0.41-0.90) with placebo: no difference.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
229 people · 229 adults aged 18 to 70 with long-term constipation
What was tested
Bifidobacterium lactis HN019, 7.0 × 109 CFU a day at the start and 4.69 × 109 CFU a day at the end, vs placebo for 8 weeks
What it measured
The question itself: gut symptoms such as bloating, pain and irregular bowels
Daily amount
7e+09 CFU a day
How long
8 weeks
Trial registration
ChiCTR2000029215
Who has a stake
Company stake
One author holds many patents licensed to probiotic makers, including DuPont Nutrition & Bioscience.
Journal
JAMA network open, 2024
Source
PubMed record 39356506. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • ✓Randomized: people were put into groups by chance, so the groups start out alike.
  • ✓Compared with a placebo, a dummy treatment.
  • •Medium size: 229 people.
  • –Short: 8 weeks. Longer-term effects are unknown.
  • ✓Measured the question itself: gut symptoms such as bloating, pain and irregular bowels.
  • –Company stake: One author holds many patents licensed to probiotic makers, including DuPont Nutrition & Bioscience.
  • •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

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

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

    9

    5 benefit, 2 mixed, 2 no difference

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  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

Of the other 8 papers on the same step: 5 benefit, 2 mixed, 1 no difference. This one found no difference. It differs from most of them.

  • Quoted in “What we found”: Not every product works: B. lactis HN019 did not beat placebo for constipation in 229 adults, and a 52-trial review of constipated children found no probiotic benefit.
  • Part of the finding “Other trials found little or no gut benefit”.
  • Marked as a key paper in the research timeline: Large HN019 constipation trial found no benefit.

Other papers on the same step

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 agreed on every checked field. 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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