A recent meta-analysis suggests that probiotics work, but it leaves us with more questions than answers.
Probiotics have increasingly been studied for the treatment and prevention of antibiotic-associated diarrhea. In a review of 12 databases, these investigators identified 63 randomized controlled trials of probiotic use with antibiotics that reported the number of participants with diarrhea; the trials included 11,811 participants. The most commonly used probiotics were Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces.
The pooled relative risk of antibiotic-associated diarrhea when probiotics were given with antibiotics was 0.58 (95% confidence interval, 0.50–0.68; P<0.001). The number of participants needed to treat to prevent one case of antibiotic-associated diarrhea was 13. The results did not differ among age groups (0–17, 18–65, and >65 years). The inve…