Probiotic effects as therapeutic anti-stress treatment for athletes under the influence of stress and anxiety on gut microbiota: A brief review

Abstract

The aim of this study is to review and discuss the probiotic effects as therapeutic treatment under the influence of stress on gut microbiota. A comprehensive search of the literature was electronically performed in the PubMed/Medline ISI Web of Knowledge Scopus and The Cochrane Library databases from their inception up to June 2018 using various combinations of the following keywords: ‘Probiotic’ ‘Prebiotics’ ‘Gut microbiota’ combined with ‘sport psychology’ ‘athletes’ ‘stress’ and ‘anxiety’. Furthermore references cited in these articles were considered in the case of limited information regarding specific topics. In addition one book chapter on sport psychology dealing with sports medicine aspects as well as prebiotics and gut microbiota were also considered. An additional study using specialized terminology associated to the keywords ‘psychology’ ‘mood states’ or ‘anxiety disease’ was performed for particular chapters of this review.