A systematic review of the scientific literature, which included 58 individual studies, found that probiotics may exert benefits against viral respiratory tract infections (RTIs) like the flu.
Of the 58 studies analyzed, nine of them were 9 human randomized controlled trials and the other 49 were animal studies. The human studies used probiotic strains from a variety of genera, including
Lactobacillus,
Lactococcus.
“To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first systematic review to report the role of gut microbiota manipulation on the risk and outcomes of viral RTIs,” stated researchers from Capital Medical University (Beijing), the Beijing Digestive Disease Center, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the