How changes in the soil microbiome can impact our climate, food chains and human health

Gut motility is central to bowel function, and dysmotility leads to slow transit and constipation, which is associated with primary gastrointestinal and extraintestinal disorders. Gut transit time, stool frequency, consistency, and bloating are the main clinical outcomes of interest for dysmotility in constipation and are affected by age, gender, lifestyle, and medication use. Although dietary and lifestyle modifications and several lines of pharmacological treatments have been used to treat constipation, new long-term therapeutic solutions are needed to improve treatment satisfaction. To this end, the efficacy of probiotics in the management of constipation has varied. Future randomized controlled trials should thus be based on well-defined probiotic preparations with at least 2 trials, designed, and reported according to unified global standards.