People mainly take Probiotics for mood, digestion, anxiety. Based on 224 first-hand reports and 2,293 meta-analyses & systematic reviews in the medical literature. Ranked #175 of 1,974 overall.
Of reports that state an outcome, 59% are positive.
Of the people who reported each effect, the share who said it got better.
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses from PubMed, with their published conclusions.
3+ meta-analyses or systematic reviews and 10+ randomized controlled trials in humans. The grade measures how much human research exists — read the conclusions below for what it found.
Conclusion: Some combinations of probiotics or strains may be beneficial in IBS. However, certainty in the evidence for efficacy by GRADE criteria was low to very low across almost all of our analyses.
PubMed 37541528 ↗Conclusion: In short, probiotics and FMT are effective for managing IBS, with Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus being dominant strains. However, the most effective probiotic combination or strain remains unclear, while prebiotics and synbiotics did not show significant improvement.
PubMed 38999862 ↗Conclusion: The present work revealed that probiotics could improve intestinal barrier function, and alleviate inflammation and microbial dysbiosis. Further high-quality RCTs are warranted to achieve a more definitive conclusion.
PubMed 37168869 ↗Conclusion: Probiotics showed substantial reductions in depression symptoms and moderate reductions in anxiety symptoms. Prebiotics showed a nonsignificant trend toward reducing depression. An adjunctive mental health treatment approach that diagnoses, monitors, and treats the gut microbiome alongside traditional pharmacological treatment holds promise for clinical practice.
PubMed 39731509 ↗As stated by users — not a recommendation. Follow the label or your doctor.
How often each side effect came up across all reports.
Verbatim quotes, shortened only — each links to the original discussion.
“I take red yeast rice, coq10, vitamin d, vitamin c, a probiotic and a multivitamin.”
“Probiotics. To get good bacterias to my gut so it can produce more serotonin.”
“Now I'm experimenting with many types of probiotics that increase serotonin. For me, it's as effective at improving my mood, but doesn't have any of the emotion-blunting effects.”
“I have been trying digestive enzymes, probiotics, and activated charcoal to varying degrees of success”
“basically taking vitamin D and a probiotic fixed a great deal of my issues”
User data from public discussions; research from PubMed. Information only, not medical advice — talk to a doctor before starting, stopping or combining anything. Data updated October 2, 2026. How we rate