SynthesisFrontiers in nutrition2026
Effects of Urolithin A supplementation on muscle health outcomes in humans from randomized controlled trials.
Synthesis in Frontiers in nutrition, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Urolithin A (UA), a gut microbiota-derived metabolite, has been proposed to improve skeletal muscle function, but evidence from randomized controlled trials has not been systematically summarized. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the effects of UA supplementation on muscle performance as well as biochemical and mitochondrial biomarkers in humans. Methods: Randomized controlled trials published up to December 2025 were identified through systematic searches of four electronic databases: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Scopus. Trials comparing oral UA supplementation with placebo and reporting muscle-related outcomes were included. Risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias 2 (RoB 2) tool, and the certainty of evidence for the primary quantitatively synthesized outcome was rated using the GRADE approach. Quantitative meta-analysis was feasible only for the 6-min walk test (6MWT); remaining outcomes were synthesized narratively. For multi-arm trials with a shared comparator, intervention arms were combined into a single group following Cochrane Handbook guidance to avoid unit-of-analysis errors. Pooled mean differences with 95% confidence intervals were calculated using inverse-variance weighting, with both fixed-effect and random-effects sensitivity analyses. Results: Five randomized controlled trials ( Conclusion: The currently available randomized human evidence is limited to five small, short-term trials in clinically heterogeneous populations. Quantitative pooling was feasible for a single outcome (6MWT) based on two trials and showed a directionally favorable but statistically inconclusive effect with low GRADE certainty. Narrative findings on strength, endurance, and mitochondrial-related biomarkers are exploratory and hypothesis-generating, not reproducible evidence of efficacy. Larger, longer, and methodologically standardized trials in better-defined populations are required before firm clinical recommendations can be made. Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD420251270987, identifier: PROSPERO 2025 CRD420251270987.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.