section name header

Evidence summaries

Probiotics in Infants for Prevention of Allergic Disease and Food Hypersensitivity

Probiotics may not decrease infant asthma, allergic rhinitis, cow's milk protein allergy, or eczema in infants at high risk of allergy. Level of evidence: "C"

A Cochrane review [Abstract] 1 included 24 studies with a total of 7077 mother-infant pairs. Probiotics may result in little to no difference in asthma (RR 0.96, 95% CI 0.65 to 1.44; 4 studies, n=954), allergic rhinitis (RR 0.89, 95% CI 0.45 to 1.77; 5 studies, n=1045) and IgE-mediated cow's milk protein allergy (RR 0.99, 95% CI 0.82 to 1.20; 4 studies, n=259) by 2 years of age; all low certainty of evidence. Probiotics may result in a slight reduction in eczema; however, sensitivity analysis of the studies at low risk of bias showed little or no difference in eczema by 2 years of age (RR 0.86, 95% CI 0.69 to 1.07; 4 studies, n=892).

Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by study quality (some risk in most of the studies), by imprecision due to ffew studies and wide confidence intervals.

    References

    • Wang HZ, Hayles EH, Fiander M, et al. Probiotics in infants for prevention of allergic disease. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2025;6(6):CD006475. [PubMed]

Primary/Secondary Keywords