Nutrition Journal

Table 2 Subgroup analyses for the effect of probiotic dairy products on respiratory tract infections

From: Effect of probiotic fermented dairy products on incidence of respiratory tract infections: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials

Subgrouped by		No. of data sets		RR^a (95 % CI)	P value^b		I2 (%)^c		P value^d
Overall		33	0.81 (0.74 to 0.89 )			˂0.001	54.8	˂0.001
Population type
Children		17	0.82 (0.73 to 0.93 )			0.001	47.4	0.01
adults		8	0.81 (0.66 to 1.00 )			0.04	41.8	0.07
Elderly		8	0.78 (0.61 to 0.98 )			0.03	34.2	0.15
Probiotic genus
Lactobacillus		31	0.81 (0.74 to 0.90 )			˂0.001	55.6	˂0.001
Bifidobacterium		2	0.90 (0.41 to 2.01 )			0.80	64.6	0.09
Dairy type
Milk		21	0.83 (0.74 to 0.92 )			˂0.001	58.0	˂0.001
Dairy drink		7	0.80 (0.64 to 1.02 )			0.07	54.3	0.04
Yoghurt		5	0.71 (0.44 to 1.13 )			0.15	49.6	0.09
Type of infection
RTIs		6	0.82 (0.67 to 1.00 )			0.05	71.1	0.004
URTIs		`17	0.83 (0.73 to 0.93 )			0.002	52.3	0.006
LRTIs		10	0.78 (0.60 to 1.01 )			0.06	43.3	0.07

RTIs Respiratory tract infections, URTIs Upper respiratory tract infections, LRTIs Lower respiratory tract infections, RR relative risk
^aEffect size was expressed as relative risk and 95% confidence interval
^bFor meta-analysis: P ≤ 0.05 was considered to be a significant effect by using a random-effects model
^cThe I² statistic was calculated by using Cochran’s test, and I² statistic > 50% was considered to indicate significant heterogeneity across studies
^dP value for I2

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ISSN: 1475-2891

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