Effectiveness and safety of probiotics in treating knee osteoarthritis: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Authors

Keye Chen, Yan Sun, Longkang Cui, Yuchen Zhu, Bingbing Zhang, Lianguo Wu

Published in

Frontiers in medicine. Volume 13. Pages 1799943. Epub Jun 16, 2026.

Abstract

Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a prevalent degenerative joint disease, and gut microbiota dysbiosis in its pathogenesis is a research hotspot. This study performed a traditional meta-analysis to systematically evaluate probiotics' efficacy (for KOA symptoms, strain-specific superiority) and safety, using RCT data from Chinese and English databases. Stata 17.0 and RevMan 5.4 analyzed outcomes including patient-reported pain (Visual Analog Scale (VAS), WOMAC pain), joint stiffness, function limitation, serum High-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), and safety. Probiotics showed no significant adverse event differences vs. placebo, with no serious safety issues. Results suggest probiotics have potential for KOA, especially Saccharomyces boulardii and LatiLactobacillus sakei LB-P12. However, small sample sizes and limited studies weaken evidence; further research is needed.

PMID:
42383034
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 01 Jul 2026.

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