Prebiotic effects
The concept of prebiotics was initially defined as “non-digestible food ingredient that
beneficially affects the host by selectively stimulating the growth and/or activity of one or a
limited number of bacteria in the colon, and thus improves host health” [47]. However, the
weakness with this definition is that almost every food oligosaccharide and polysaccharide
(including dietary fibre) can be claimed to have prebiotic activity. Later, it was proposed that
to be allowed to classify a compound as a prebiotic it should scientifically be demonstrated
that it resists host digestion, absorption and adsorption processes, is fermented by the
microbiota colonising the GI system and selectively stimulates the growth and/or the activity
of one or a limited number of bacteria within the GI system