Probiotics in acute infectious diarrhea

Background: Acute infectious diarrhea in children represents a worldwide problem and it relates to desnutrition, morbility and death. Objective: Determine the usefulness of probiotics in the treatment of acute infectious diarrhea in children by reviewing the scientific information available in the form or meta-analysis. Methods: A detailed search was performed in electronic databases. Four of the articles found met inclusion criteria. Results: The four meta-analysis studied demonstrated that the administration of probiotics in children with acute infectious diarrhea decreased the episode duration in approximately one day with minimal adverse events. Conclusions: Despite methodological limitations of the analysed articles, the studies showed the same trend towards observing a benefit in the use of probiotics in acute infectious diarrhea in children. The latter supports the consistency of this association. In general, the use of probiotics in children with acute infectious diarrhea would be useful in general practice reducing diarrhea duration in approximately one day.