Italian doctors conducted a clinical study and found that children who took probiotics during acute respiratory viral infections had fevers that lasted an average of three days, while those in the placebo group, which did not receive probiotics, had fevers that lasted an average of five days. The study was published in JAMA Network Open.
Children under five years of age experience an average of five to eight acute respiratory viral infections (ARVIs) per year. Symptoms typically worsen by the third or fifth day and resolve within two weeks. In addition to catarrhal symptoms, fever is also common, significantly affecting the child's well-being. Currently, there are no recommended routine treatments for ARVIs; symptomatic treatment is typically administered. Antipyretics reduce the fever but do not shorten the duration of the infection.
In recent years, probiotics have become increasingly popular in pediatrics, primarily to alleviate gastrointestinal symptoms. The link between gut microbiota and inflammation and immunity, however, opens up the potential for their use in the treatment of acute respiratory viral infections.
Italian doctors led by Gregorio Paolo Milani from the Maggiore Hospital in Milan conducted a clinical trial of a probiotic mixture containing Bifidobacterium breve M-16V, Bifidobacterium lactis HN019, and Lactobacillus rhamnosus HN001 for the treatment of children with upper respiratory tract infections. The study included children aged 28 days to 4 years with a fever over 38.5 degrees Celsius and an upper respiratory tract infection.
Sixty-three children received a probiotic mixture for two weeks, while 65 received a placebo. In the probiotic group, fever lasted an average of three days, compared to five days in the placebo group. Poisson regression showed that probiotic treatment was associated with a reduced fever duration. Adverse events (constipation and abdominal pain) were comparable in both groups.
The study has some limitations: temperatures were measured by the children's guardians, not doctors, and probiotics were administered at different stages of the infection. Despite this, the authors believe that probiotics can be considered a potentially useful adjunct to the symptomatic treatment of acute respiratory viral infections.
The addition of probiotics to the diet is being studied in various conditions, such as pregnancy. Australian and Swiss researchers conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials, which found no evidence of benefit from probiotics in this population.
