Anna Skuza, Mateusz J Swierz, Dawid Storman, Katarzyna W Jasinska, Wojciech Staskiewicz, Magdalena Gorecka, Paulina Tobola and Malgorzata M Bala
Jagiellonian University Medical College, Poland
Introduction & Objective: Bariatric Surgery (BS) is at the moment the most effective treatment considering weight loss. To improve the sustainability of results certain interventions such as administration of probiotics may be implemented. Because of inconsistent results of published Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs), performing the systematic review to assess the efficacy of probiotics in patients undergoing BS is justified.
Method: We searched electronic databases (Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, CENTRAL, Web of Science) and registers of clinical trials (ClinicalTrials.gov, European Trials Register, WHO International Trials Registry Platform) using appropriate strategies without any restrictions. Studies designed as RCTs, where patients undergoing BS were provided probiotics at any dose, were included. The primary outcomes were weight loss measured as a change in e.g. weight/BMI/percentage of excess weight loss and modification in the quality of life. Secondary outcomes were: Change in gastrointestinal symptoms and frequency of adverse effects. Title/abstract, full-text screening, and data extraction were performed independently by pairs of reviewers and any conflicts were resolved by discussion or help from the third reviewer. Moreover, the references of included studies and references of any identified systematic review/meta-analysis were searched during the screening process. We used the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool for risk of bias assessment. The study protocol was published in the PROSPERO database (CRD42018105257).
Results: Searches yielded 1998 results and after deduplication 1728 abstracts were left to screen. Out of 23 retrieved full texts, 5 studies (13 references) met the inclusion criteria. In total, 226 patients (75% of women) were recruited and duration of interventions ranged from two weeks to six months. Interventions comprised individual supplements of Clostridium butyricum, Bifidobacterium longum, Lactobacillus, as well as complex preparations of up to 11 different species of probiotics. The outcomes were reported inconsistently among included trials with % excess weight loss being the most commonly reported outcome (4 studies).
Conclusion: This topic does not seem to be well researched and high-quality RCTs in this area are needed.
Katarzyna W Jasinska is a Junior Researcher from Faculty of Medicine, Jagiellonian University Medical College in Cracow, Poland. She is an author of several published papers and numerous congress presentations. Her main research interests are probiotics and bariatric.
E-mail: ania6495@gmail.com
