Small probiotic trial reports improved happiness and sleep scores

In a small trial, healthy older adults taking a probiotic called PA53 recorded improvements in happiness, sleep quality and digestive measures after eight weeks. The study examined whether this particular strain of bacteria could affect well-being as well as digestion. PubMed / The Journal of Nutrition (source, opens in new tab)

Published in The Journal of Nutrition, the trial involved 75 adults aged 55–70. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either Pediococcus acidilactici PA53 mixed with maltodextrin or maltodextrin alone as a placebo. Neither participants nor researchers knew who was receiving which preparation during the study. The daily probiotic dose was 30 billion colony-forming units, a count used to describe the amount of living microorganisms.

The researchers reported statistically significant improvements in the PA53 group’s happiness, sleep-quality, digestive-symptom and stool-form measures. To judge how much the probiotic helped, however, the important comparison is with the placebo group. The available abstract gives too little detail about those differences to establish how large the benefit was or whether it would make a noticeable difference to daily life.

These findings concern one strain at one dose. They cannot tell readers what to expect from a different probiotic product, or whether any benefit would last beyond the eight-week trial.

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