Daily probiotic yogurt consumption in low doses (<200 g/d) must pursue for more than eight weeks for its beneficial effects.

This effect is significant in overweight people (25 < BMI<29.9 kg/m 2 ) with the baseline CRP levels more than 3 mg/dl.

Daily probiotic yogurt consumption decreases serum CRP levels, but has no effect on IL-6 and TNF-α.

Abstract

Purpose Health beneficial effects of yogurt have been confirmed at the previous studies but trials on probiotic yogurt have inconsistent results.

Methods A systematically search was done to find clinical trials published in databases including PubMed, Cochrane's library, ISI web of Science, Scopus, and Ovid from the beginning up to November 2019 to assess the effects of daily probiotic yogurt consumption on serum levels of C-reactive protein (CPR), tumor-necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and interleukin (IL)-6. From 2193 papers, excluding duplicates, nine studies were included in this meta-analysis.

Results The pooled random-effect size analysis of nine trials showed significant effect of daily probiotic yogurt consumption on serum CRP levels [WMD (−0.26), (95% CI -0.42 to −0.09), p = 0.002], but no considerable effect was seen on TNF-α [WMD (−0.32), (95% CI -2.25 to 1.6), p = 0.74] and IL-6 [WMD (−0.2), (95%CI -0.53 to 0.14), p = 0.25]. The subgroup analysis showed that daily probiotic yogurt consumption significantly reduced serum CRP levels in the doses lower than 200 g, for more than eight weeks in the overweight participants (25 < BMI<29.9 kg/m2) with the baseline CRP levels <3 (mg/dl).