Probiotic supplement reduces atopic dermatitis in preschool children: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, clinical trial.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Probiotics.

The role of probiotics in the treatment of atopic dermatitis (AD) remains controversial.

A recent systematic review of the available evidence called for further clinical trials with new probiotic formulations.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 90 children were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as infants and young children, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Probiotics and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Blinding on both sides kept the children and researchers unaware of who received Probiotics.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Probiotics could be set against what happens without it.

The primary outcome measure was the percentage change in Scoring of Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD) value.

Other outcome measures were changes in Infant Dermatitis Quality Of Life (IDQOL) and Dermatitis Family Impact (DFI) scores, frequency and amount of topical corticosteroid used, and lymphocyte subsets in peripheral blood measured by laser flow cytometry.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Adrenal Cortex Hormones, Dermatitis, Atopic, Lymphocyte Count, Lymphocyte Subsets, Probiotics and Quality of Life.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Probiotics in 90 children.

Its findings take up roughly 8 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2010 (American journal of clinical dermatology), a journal based in New Zealand.

More context: all human trials.