I am planning to get a probiotic anyways, wouldn't mind trying out the one that was used in the study.
This will be one instance where I would not mind an affiliate link ;-)
I'm still swithering whether to go full steam ahead and try this - https://orders.generalbiotics.com/orders/new - however I currently use the one that Bulk Powders sell which correlates to a period of steady weight loss (that was also in the summer period when I drank more water and carried a 5kg rucksack 5 miles daily)
This is a great article and study. We see more and more evidence that the human consciousness and decision making is distributed and in more places than the brain. Lots of articles in last 6 months about how our "gut" influences decisions based on bacteria, microbes, and flora.
This study performs a randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled (all good) trial to determine the effect of probiotics using a self-report survey. However, the trial is horribly underpowered [1] (N = 20 per group). There's little reason to believe the differences are true effects, rather than statistical noise.
It may be true that this particular sample is too small; I haven't looked at the experiment in detail. However, just pointing out that n<=20 per group isn't enough of an argument to justify this statement. Significance is about more than just the sample size. The idea that it's impossible to get significant statistical result with small samples is a common misconception.
True. The study provides the requisite observation variances and effect sizes for this analysis as well.