Table 2.

Efficacy of probiotics in irritable bowel syndrome[112]

Authors' statement	Parameter scored	Conclusion	Grade of evidence for effect	Ref.
1	Global symptom assessment	Specific probiotics help relieve overall symptom burden in some patients with IBS	High	[147,149,150,152,156-157,169, 174,176-178]
2	Global symptom assessment	Specific probiotics help relieve overall symptom burden in some patients with C-IBS	Low	[147,156-157]
3	Global symptom assessment	Specific probiotics help relieve overall symptom burden in some patients with D-IBS	Moderate	[147,149,174-175]
4	Abdominal Pain	Specific probiotics help reduce abdominal pain in some patients with IBS	High	[145,147,149-150,152,155-157, 168-169,174-119]
5	Bloating/distension	Specific probiotics help reduce bloating/distension in some patients with IBS	Moderate	[147,149-150,155-156,168-170, 174-177,179-183]
6	Flatus	Probiotics tested to date do not help reduce flatus in patients with IBS	Low	[147,149-150,156,168,174-175, 178-179,184]
7	Constipation	Specific probiotics may help reduce constipation in some patients with IBS	Low	[155-156,183,185]
8	Bowel habit	Specific probiotics help improve frequency and/or consistency of bowel movements in some patients with IBS	Moderate	[145,147,149-150,152,155-157, 168-170,174-180,182,185-186,188-189]
9	Diarrhoea	Probiotics tested to date do not reduce diarrhea in patients with IBS	Very low	[174,179,181-183,185,187]
12	Health-related quality of life	With specific probiotics, improvement of symptoms has been shown to lead to improvement in some aspects of health-related quality of life	Moderate	[147,150,152,155,169-170,174,176-177,179-180,183-184,186]

IBS: Irritable bowel syndrome; D-IBS: Diarrhea predominant IBS; C-IBS: Constipation predominant IBS.