Beneficial effects of probiotics and prebiotics

Introduction

Probiotics

Large number of micro-organisms live on various sections of human body (skin, mouth and gastrointestinal tracts) that are exposed to the outside environment.
These are known as commensal microbes have associated with humans. They are greatly interdependent with them.

The highest concentration of commensal organisms believed to be in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract that has above 400m2 surface area (this makes up the second largest surface area of the body).
The GI tract can harbour high extent of flora (>500 various bacterial species) among which some are beneficial, e.g. stimulating and supporting the host from invading bacteria and viruses and assisting digestion.

Tannock (1998) states that germ free animals are more sensitive to infection in comparison with their conventional counterparts.
This can be in relation to a low immune system and probably the lack of competitive colonization as Van dev Waaij et al. (1972) suggested.

Competitive colonization refers to interference of virulence by attacking pathogens by commensal microbes.
A research about germ free animals has implied that microbial colonization has essential (health) roles for humans.

However microbes may occasionally develop a pathogenic relationship with a host that can result in occurring disease or even death of the host.
Microbial metabolites may have mutagenic or carcinogenic activity. As a result cancer can develop during the long period of exposure.

Therefore understanding the influence of colonizing microbes in addition to learning desired factors to encourage the positive and inhibit the negative activities of commensal attacking microbes.

The probiotic abstraction has been an important issue. They are known as live micro-organisms involving a health influence on the host when consumed in adequate amount (Guarner and Schaafsma 1998).
In other words, Probiotics are the foods for the beneficial bacteria. They can be added to the diet to help the beneficial bacteria grow and survive the digestive mechanism.
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