THE IMPACT OF THE SUPPLEMENTATION OF PROBIOTICS USED AS PSYCHOBIOTICS ON ADOLESCENTS’ AND YOUNG ADULTS’ MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL-BEING AFFECTED BY THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC – A LITERATURE REVIEW OF THE CURRENT STATE OF KNOWLEDGE

Background. During the COVID-19 pandemic, various factors resulted in dramatic changes in the living environment of adolescents and young adults, consequently, harming their well-being and having a negative impact on their mental health. Therefore, supporting the mental health of young populations has been an imperative goal of recent research. There is a growing interest in the use of probiotics as psychobiotics to potentially aid in this goal. The review aimed to capture the current state of the literature on the impact of psychobiotic supplementation on mental health of adolescents and young adults in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The scope of the work included a systematic search of three databases: PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus, and the ClinicalTrials.gov clinical trial database. Results and conclusion. A preliminary search did not allow to find studies referring to the COVID-19 pandemic. Narrowing queries down to studies conducted before the pandemic allowed to identify eighteen studies aimed at determining whether supplementation with probiotics improves the mental health of adolescents and young adults. In the included studies, the impact of probiotic consumption on stress levels, depressive symptoms, cognitive functioning and neurodevelopment were assessed most often. The evidence ambiguously indicates the effectiveness of probiotic interventions in ensuring mental health of adolescents and young adults. This is probably due to the limited number of small and short-term studies, as well as their heterogeneity. The results emerging from the existing literature are encouraging, but it is not possible to formulate an unequivocal recommendation. It is essential to plan and conduct new research into the role of probiotics in mental health and to verify their clinical efficacy in combating negative health effects caused by the coronavirus pandemic, including those affecting the mental health of adolescents and young adults.