title: Does the scientific evidence support the advertising claims made for products containing Lactobacillus casei and Bifidobacterium lactis? A systematic review.
abstract: To analyse the scientific evidence that exists for the advertising claims made for two products containing Lactobacillus casei and Bifidobacterium lactis and to conduct a comparison between the published literature and what is presented in the corporate website.
  
  
  
  Systematic review, using Medline through Pubmed and Embase. We included human clinical trials that exclusively measured the effect of Lactobacillus casei or Bifidobacterium lactis on a healthy population, and where the objective was related to the health claims made for certain products in advertising. We assessed the levels of evidence and the strength of the recommendation according to the classification criteria established by the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (CEBM). We also assessed the outcomes of the studies published on the website that did not appear in the search.
  
  
  
  Of the 440 articles identified, 16 met the inclusion criteria. Only four (25%) of these presented a level of evidence of 1b and a recommendation grade of A, all corresponding to studies on product containing Bifidobacterium lactis, and only 12 of the 16 studies were published on the corporate website (47).
  
  
  
  There is insufficient scientific evidence to support the health claims made for these products, especially in the case of product containing Lactobacillus casei.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain.
authors.forename: Lorena
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Meléndez-Illanes
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication and Social Psychology, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: González-Díaz
authors.affiliation: Research Group on Public Health, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Cuenca, Cuenca, Ecuador.
authors.forename: Elisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Chilet-Rosell
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain Research Group on Public Health, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain Network for Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP) Biomedical Research Centre, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain.
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Álvarez-Dardet
mesh_terms: D000329:Advertising; D000069982:Bifidobacterium animalis / Q000378:metabolism; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006801:Humans; D007780:Lacticaseibacillus casei / Q000378:metabolism; D019936:Probiotics / Q000627:therapeutic use
keywords: Bifidobacterium; Lactobacillus casei; fermented milk products; probiotics; systematic review