ReviewEuropean journal of nutrition2022
Probiotic supplementation demonstrates therapeutic potential in treating gut dysbiosis and improving neurocognitive function in age-related dementia.
Review in European journal of nutrition, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effect of probiotics on cognitive function and cardiovascular risk factors in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease: an umbrella meta-analysis.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2025Pooled it
- Beyond the 'second brain': the gut microbiota as a constitutive co-constructor of embodied cognitive network.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Enterogenic dementia: defining the gut-brain axis and the role of inflammatory bowel disease in cognitive impairment.Inflammopharmacology · 2025Review
- Gut Microbiota and Exercise: Probiotics to Modify the Composition and Roles of the Gut Microbiota in the Context of 3P Medicine.Microbial ecology · 2025Review
- Leveraging microbiome-based interventions to improve the management of neurodegenerative diseases: evidence for effects along the microbiota-gut-brain axis.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Review
- Postbiotics of Naturally Fermented Synbiotic Mixture of Rice Water Aids in Promoting Colonocyte Health.Biomolecules · 2024Article
- Gut microbiota, circulating cytokines and dementia: a Mendelian randomization study.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2024Article
- Gut dysbiosis mediates the association between antibiotic exposure and chronic disease.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Review
- Association between multimorbidity status and incident dementia: a prospective cohort study of 245,483 participants.Translational psychiatry · 2022Article
- Probiotics: Protecting Our Health from the Gut.Microorganisms · 2022Review
- The Impact of ProbioticAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeProbiotics, as live microorganisms that improve intestinal microbial balance, have been implicated in the modulation of neurodegenerative diseases via the microbiome-gut-brain axis by improving gut dysbiosis. This review examines the association between probiotics and neurocognitive function in age-related dementia.
methodsWe searched MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science and Cochrane library for in vivo studies using equivalent combinations of "probiotics" and "dementia" as per PRISMA. From the 52 in vivo studies identified, 5 human and 22 animal studies with comparable quantitative outcomes on neurocognitive/behavioural function were meta-analysed by forest plots, subgroup analysis and meta-regression. The analysis of biomarkers, risk of bias and publication bias were also performed.
resultsIn elderly humans, probiotics correlates with a non-significant difference of neurocognitive function in Mini-Mental State Examination, but with significant improvement only in those diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. In animals, probiotics significantly improved neurocognitive function as measured by Morris Water Maze, Y-Maze, and Passive Avoidance. Further analysis by subgrouping and meta-regression found that the probiotics-neurodegeneration association is age dependent in humans but is neither dose dependent nor duration dependent in animals or humans. Analysis of biomarkers suggested that the neurocognitive effect of probiotics is associated with an altered gut microbiome profile, downregulated proteinopathic, inflammatory and autophagic pathways, and upregulated anti-oxidative, neurotrophic, and cholinergic pathways.
conclusionOverall, we report promising results in animal studies but limited evidence of probiotics leading to neurocognitive improvement in humans. More research into probiotics should be conducted, especially on live biotherapeutic products for targeted treatment of gut dysbiosis and age-related dementia.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.