Prebiotics vs Probiotics for digestion
Short answer: For digestion, more users report improvement with Prebiotics — 89% of 9 reports, versus 84% of 86 for Probiotics.
Prebiotics has 526 meta-analyses and 415 randomized trials on PubMed; Probiotics has 2,293 and 2,235.
Based on 28 reports about Prebiotics and 479 about Probiotics. Not medical advice.
| Prebiotics Supplement | Probiotics Supplement | |
|---|---|---|
| Users say it helped | 62%helped8 reports · few reports | 63%helped144 reports · high confidence |
| Verdict | Mostly positive | Mostly positive |
| Research | AResearch: Strong | AResearch: Strong |
| Meta-analyses / RCTs | 526 / 415 | 2,293 / 2,235 |
| Mainly used for | ||
| Digestion % reporting improvement | 89% (9) | 84% (86) |
| Mood % reporting improvement | 100% (3) | 100% (54) |
| Anxiety % reporting improvement | — | 90% (29) |
| Energy % reporting improvement | 100% (2) | 80% (10) |
| Focus % reporting improvement | — | 70% (10) |
| Common side effects | None reported | stomach issues, brain fog, diarrhea, withdrawal |
| Typical dose reported | — | 2 capsules / daily |
There is general support for antidepressant and anxiolytic effects of probiotics, but the pooled effects were reduced by the paucity of trials with clinical samples. Additional randomized clinical trials with psychiatric samples are necessary fully to evaluate their therapeutic potential.
Neurosci Biobehav Rev, 2019 ↗“Probiotics, prebiotics and ashwagandha. These three helped me more than cipralex”
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.
Gastroenterology, 2023 ↗“What finally made a difference was taking probiotics...I felt better fairly quickly.”
Related comparisons
Percentages come from first-hand user reports and are not clinical outcomes. Talk to a doctor before starting, stopping or combining anything. How we rate