Probiotics originate from Japan, where functional foods have been part of the normal diet for years. Doctors often recommend them to their patients, for example, to help treat gastrointestinal problems. Thanks to brands like Yakult, probiotics have become common across Asia. But in Europe and North America, interest in probiotics is relatively new.
Probiotics are mostly lactic-acid bacteria such as lactobacilli and bifidobacteria. They resist both gastric and bile and so can survive in the often bacteria-unfriendly conditions of the stomach.
This distinguishes them from other lactic-acid bacteria in fermented products such as yoghurt. Probiotics help to improve health by balancing the number of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria in the intestine. They’re the opposite of antibiotics—which kill bad bacteria.
(Probiotics should not be confused with prebiotics. Prebiotics are food ingredients that cannot be digested but affect in good ways— they selectively stimulating growth or activity of some strains of bacteria in the colon.)
New applications for probiotics are continually under development. The major end-user markets are dairy (nine percent), dietary supplements (44 percent), animal feed (46 percent) and, to a lesser extent, specialty nutrition products (one percent), such as infant formulae.
‘Most scientists believe they [probiotic bacteria] should be alive.However, there are indications that even dead bacteria may produce some probiotic effects.’
Some examples of probiotic foods are the yoghurt Danone Activia (to improve gastrointestinal transit), the fermented milk drink Yakult (to support natural resistance) and Nestlé LC1 Vitaldrink (to stimulate the ‘good’ bacteria in the gut and to reinforce the natural defence system).
The market research agency Frost & Sullivan mentions three key drivers for the development of the probiotics market: the development of targeted probiotic therapies for specific health conditions; new applications for probiotic ingredients; and bans on antibiotics in animal feed.
There are obstacles. Consumers may have little understanding or awareness of probiotics. Complicated regulations on health claims for food don’t help either. Did You Know? The name ‘probiotics’ was coined in 1989 by the British scientist Roy Fuller. In addition, health professionals outside Japan do not seem to be fully aware of the possible health benefits of probiotics. Another restraint is the limited stability of probiotics in foods. Some people believe that prebiotics may have a greater market potential than probiotics, as they do not have the same stability problems since they are not alive. In the last decades, scientists have discovered several promising probiotic applications, through both live and artificial studies. By now they are convinced that probiotics may decrease onstipation and both bacterial and viral diarrhoea. Dr Erika Isolauri leads a research group whose clinical studies focus on on probiotics in infants, especially in treating rota viruses. She is a professor of paediatrics at the Turku University Central Hospital in Finland. ‘In the last decades the treatment of this kind of diarrhoea has remarkably improved recovery from weeks into days,’ Prof Isolauri says. ‘We have found that probiotics can accelerate recovery even more, by one or two days.’ Prof Isolauri and her colleagues presume that probiotics reinforce intestinal defences in two ways: both by influencing the mix of bacteria in the intestine, and by stimulating the immune system. ‘For example, they may compete with “bad” bacteria by the production of enzymes and influence the local pH. In addition, they control the generation of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines— substances produced by our immune system as a protection against intruders,’ Prof says. She says clinical studies suggest probiotics help treat children with atopic eczema—an inherited form of the skin