META-ANALYSIS OF THE CORRELATION BETWEEN PROBIOTICS AND BONE MINERAL DENSITY

Xuefeng Feng, Xin Long, Zucai Pang^* 

Department of Orthopedics, Shunde Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Foshan, Guangdong 528333, China

Introduction: To explore the effect of probiotics on bone density. 

Materials and methods: English literature on the effect of probiotics on bone mineral density was searched by computer in cnki, cqvip.com, wanfang database, Chinese biomedical literature database, Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane library from December 1, 2011 to January 1, 2019. Two researchers independently screened the literature and extracted the data. After literature quality evaluation was conducted according to the Newcastle-Ottawa scale, RevMan5.3 software was used for Meta-analysis. 

Results: A total of 85 papers were initially retrieved, and after screening 7 papers were adopted in this analysis, all of which were in English. The 7 selected literatures were of relatively high quality, and all the scores of the Newcastle-Ottawa scale were ≥6. The results of Meta-analysis showed that compared with the control group, the bone density of the experimental group was significantly increased after drinking probiotics [SMD=5.25, 95% CI (1.49, 9.00)]; in the experimental group, there was no significant change in bone density of lumbar vertebra [SMD=0.03, 95% CI (-0.27, 0.33)]; compared with the control group, the femoral neck bone mineral density (BMD) of the experimental group after drinking probiotics had a significant increase trend [SMD=0.50, 95% CI (-0.46, 1.45)]. The funnel plot shows a gap in the lower-left corner. 

Conclusions: Probiotics may increase BMD and reduce the risk of BMD reduction.