Clinical Nutrition Open Science (Dec 2024)
Beneficial effects of probiotics to flatten the curve of COVID-19 pandemic: A review
Abstract
Summary: Background: COVID-19 is a newly emerging pathogen responsible for respiratory infections and has caused high morbidity and mortality globally. To date, there is no effective treatment protocol for this virus. Objectives: The current study has reviewed the probable mechanisms involved in relation between probiotic supplementation and corona virus disease. It also has found the most beneficial strains of probiotic in this regard. Methods: Major search engines such as Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, ScienceDirect, Medline, and Google Scholar have been used for searching English papers and SID, Magiran, and IranMedex for Persian language papers through keywords such as COVID-19, corona virus, probiotic, clinical trials since early 2020 until the end of 2023. Next, we manually reviewed the contents of these articles. Inclusion criteria included clinical trials on both sexes without any comorbidity. Results: Based on the clinical trials that were assessed in this review, we found that probiotics decrease fever, cough, nasal congestion, shortness of breath and diarrhea in patients with corona virus disease. Furthermore, remission and modification of main symptoms of disease occur sooner in patients who receive oral bacterio therapy compared to those who receive only drug regimen. It also seems that probiotic supplementation not only can reduce requirement to use mechanical ventilation in patients, but also decrease the mortality rate caused by disease. One of the interesting findings of this review is that the most beneficial effects of bacterio therapy, could be attributed to Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus genus. Conclusions: Consuming probiotics against coronavirus seems promising in prevention and treatment. Probiotics' health and safety benefits have been confirmed, including their role in fighting certain viral infections. Further research is needed to confirm their appropriate performance as a new approach to remission COVID-19 viruses.
