Probiotics
Probiotics are products aimed at delivering living, potentially beneficial, bacterial cells to the gut ecosystem of humans and other animals, whereas prebiotics are indigestible carbohydrates delivered in food to the large bowel to provide fermentable substrates for selected bacteria. Strains of LAB are the most common microbes employed as probiotics. Two principal kinds of probiotic bacteria, members of the genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, have been studied in detail.
Most probiotic strains belong to the genus Lactobacillus. Probiotics have been evaluated in research studies in animals and humans with respect to antibiotic-associated diarrhoea, travellers' diarrhoea, pediatric diarrhoea, inflammatory bowel disease, and irritable bowel syndrome. In the future, probiotics possibly will be used for different gastrointestinal diseases, vaginosis, or as delivery systems for vaccines, immunoglobulins, and other therapies.
Read more about this topic: Lactic Acid Bacteria