Effects of Probiotic Supplementation on Sports Performance and Performance-Related Features in Athletes: A Systematic Review

Mirella Di Dio, Patrizia Calella, Concetta Paola Pelullo, Fabrizio Liguori, Valeria Di Onofrio, Francesca Gallè () and Giorgio Liguori
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Mirella Di Dio: Department of Movement Sciences and Wellbeing, University of Naples “Parthenope”, 80133 Naples, Italy
Patrizia Calella: Department of Movement Sciences and Wellbeing, University of Naples “Parthenope”, 80133 Naples, Italy
Concetta Paola Pelullo: Department of Movement Sciences and Wellbeing, University of Naples “Parthenope”, 80133 Naples, Italy
Fabrizio Liguori: Department of Economics and Legal Studies, University of Naples “Parthenope”, Via Generale Parisi 13, 80132 Naples, Italy
Valeria Di Onofrio: Department of Sciences and Technologies, University of Naples “Parthenope”, 80143 Naples, Italy
Francesca Gallè: Department of Movement Sciences and Wellbeing, University of Naples “Parthenope”, 80133 Naples, Italy
Giorgio Liguori: Department of Movement Sciences and Wellbeing, University of Naples “Parthenope”, 80133 Naples, Italy

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 3, 1-14

Abstract: This review aims to evaluate the effects of probiotic supplementation on performance and performance-related conditions in athletes by evaluating randomized controlled studies from the MEDLINE (Pubmed), Web of Science, Scopus, and SPORTDiscus (EBSCO) databases. From a total of 2304 relevant articles, 13 studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Seven studies concern endurance athletes, one to rugby players, three refer to non-specified athletes, one to badminton players, and one involves baseball players. The evidence suggests that the integration of athletes’ diets with some bacterial strains and also the consumption of multi-strain compounds may lead to an improvement in performance and can positively affect performance-related aspects such as fatigue, muscle pain, body composition, and cardiorespiratory fitness. However, the type of supplementation and sport is very variable among the studies examined. Therefore, to obtain more solid evidence, further controlled and comparable studies are needed to expand the research regarding the possible repercussions of probiotics use on athletes’ performance.

Keywords: athletes; sport; performance; probiotic; diet supplementation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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