Frontiers in Nutrition (Oct 2022)

The effects of supplementation of probiotics, prebiotics, or synbiotics on patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

  • Wenmin Xing,
  • Wenyan Gao,
  • Xiaoling Lv,
  • Zhenlei Zhao,
  • Genxiang Mao,
  • Xiaoyan Dong,
  • Zuyong Zhang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.1024678
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9

Abstract

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BackgroundNon-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most prevalent chronic liver disease. Research on the efficacy of probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics on NAFLD patients continues to be inconsistent. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of these microbial therapies on NAFLD.MethodsEligible randomized-controlled trials reporting the effect of probiotics, prebiotics, or synbiotics in NAFLD were searched in PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Google scholar, and CNKI databases from 2020 to Jul 2022. The changes in the outcomes were analyzed using standard mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) with a random- or fixed-effects model to examine the effect of microbial therapies. Subgroup analysis, influence and publication bias analysis were also performed. The quality of the eligible studies was evaluated using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool.ResultsEleven studies met the inclusion criteria involving 741 individuals. Microbial therapies could improve liver steatosis, total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), low-density lipoprotein (LDL-c), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT), and homeostasis model assessment-insulin resistance (HOMAI-R) (all P < 0.05). But microbial therapies could not ameliorate body mass index (BMI), energy, carbohydrate, fat intake, fasting blood sugar, HbA1c, insulin, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), and hepatic fibrosis of patients with NAFLD.ConclusionProbiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics supplementation can potentially improve liver enzymes, lipid profiles, and liver steatosis in patients with NAFLD.

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