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Pooled review (meta-analysis)

Pooled review of 91 trials in children with belly pain: no clear probiotic benefit

Sinopoulou and colleagues · The Lancet. Child & adolescent health · 2025

Original title: Efficacy of interventions for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome, functional abdominal pain-not otherwise specified, and abdominal migraine in children: a systematic review and network meta-analysis.

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

No difference

Only hypnotherapy (RR 4.99) and cognitive behavioural therapy (RR 1.99) probably worked. For probiotics and other treatments, evidence was not effective or too weak to conclude.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Pooled review (meta-analysis)
Who or what was studied
91 studies, 7,226 people · children aged 4 to 18 with IBS or long-term belly pain
What was tested
Diet, drug, probiotic and talk therapies compared with control; 23 trials (1762 children) were on probiotics
What it measured
The question itself: gut symptoms such as bloating, pain and irregular bowels
Who has a stake
Company stake
Two authors report fees from United Pharmaceuticals and Danone, among others, paid to the hospital.
Journal
The Lancet. Child & adolescent health, 2025
Source
PubMed record 40246358. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • ✓Pools the results of 91 studies with 7,226 people.
  • •A pooled review is only as strong as the studies it pools.
  • ✓Measured the question itself: gut symptoms such as bloating, pain and irregular bowels.
  • –Company stake: Two authors report fees from United Pharmaceuticals and Danone, among others, paid to the hospital.
  • •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 pooled review (meta-analysis), 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
  • Part of the finding “Children: diarrhea helped; constipation and belly pain unclear”.
  • Summed up in “What reviews found”: Pooled 91 trials with 7226 children with IBS or belly pain, 23 of them on probiotics (1762 children). Only hypnotherapy and a talk therapy probably worked; other treatments were not effective or too uncertain to judge.

Other reviews on this question

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 reviewer corrected 1 field after reading the abstract. 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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