The impact of probiotic supplementation on general well being (ProWEB)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The impact of PRObiotic supplementation on general WEll-Being: A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, smartphone based study in healthcare workers
IRAS ID
312511
Contact name
Clare Wright
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cwm Taf Morgannwg UHB
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
The health and wellbeing of any workforce is a core priority and supporting the wellbeing of employees is an important part of everyday working life. Winter is a time of particular challenge and is linked to increased absenteeism. There is a growing awareness that probiotics (known as ‘good’ or ‘friendly’ bacteria (similar to the bacteria found in yogurts)) can play a role in boosting general wellbeing. They can be capsules, tablets or powders in sachets that are taken daily to help to keep the gut in peak condition. We all have trillions of bacteria in our guts living together happily and they are known to be essential for our wellbeing, but because the stresses and strains of everyday life can often disturb their balance we can take probiotics to help restore and maintain the balance. Over the winter of 2022, a small initiative project was set up in South Wales to ‘try out’ a probiotic manufactured by Cultech Limited (a company based in Port Talbot specialising in the production of nutritional supplements and probiotics). The results were very promising, with significant improvements in wellbeing observed and significantly reduced absenteeism among those who opted to take the product. In this study we want to do a follow-up by including a dummy (placebo) version alongside the probiotic and introduce a randomisation process to assess the effectiveness of the same probiotic nutritional supplement in NHS healthcare workers over the winter period.
REC name
N/A
REC reference
N/A