Probiotic-enhanced foods and beverages are rolling out at record rates in the United States. From boosting immunity to aiding gastrointestinal ailments, products formulated with these “good-for-you” microorganisms claim to offer potential benefits for a range of health conditions.
“This is a particularly important time in the evolution of probiotic research,” says Gregor Reid, researcher, Canadian R&D Centre for Probiotics, London, Ontario. “There has been strong growth in foods containing probiotics, and a number of them are supported with clinical studies showing health benefits.”
Yogurt and fermented milks remain the most-popular delivery vehicles for probiotics. However, other food matrices—from breakfast cereal to ketchup—are also claiming to be formulated with probiotic cultures. Many in the scientific community question the accuracy of calling these foods probiotic.
“A potential major problem for probiotics is the misuse of the term,” says Reid. “This can arise from products being poorly manufactured or being referred to as probiotic without any relevant documentation. The net effect, deleterious to the overall field of probiotics, might be that such products are found to be ineffective, when in fact they were not even probiotic in the first place.”
Mary Ellen Sanders, consultant, Dairy & Food Culture Technologies, Centennial, CO, says, “Strain-specific clinical data demonstrating health benefits, and formulation of products with the effective dose, is essential for the future of credible probiotic foods and beverages.”
Reid concurs, adding, “By uncovering how probiotic interventions function in vivo, it will be possible to further expand applications that improve general health, and in some cases provide adjunctive anti-disease benefits.
“Further, it is important that probiotic products meet appropriate international standards and contain appropriately speciated and characterized organisms,” Reid continues. Thus, it is the responsibility of food and beverage manufacturers, probiotic marketers and scientists to use the term probiotic responsibly.
Qualifying as probiotic
The term probiotic is not legally defined or regulated in the United States, and thus the industry must self-regulate. International guidelines come from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The guidelines define probiotics as “live microorganisms which, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host.” The complete FAO/WHO “Guidelines for the Evaluation of Probiotics in Food” can be found at who.int/foodsafety/fs_management/en/probiotic_guidelines.pdf.
Doses, dosages and efficacy
“Many of the probiotics strains that are in the global market are of human origin,” says Mirjana Curic-Bawden, senior scientist, Chr. Hansen, Inc., Milwaukee, WI.
However, according to Sanders, no evidence indicates human origin is an important issue.
“Probiotic efficacy is strain-specific and dependent upon the type of effect,” says Mike Bush, vice president of business development, Ganeden Biotech, Inc., Mayfield Heights, OH. “While one studied effect may require more cells per day for a longer period of time, other effects may require shorter periods of consumption of fewer cells. There is no set number, as some strains have been studied using millions of cells per day while others require trillions.” It is best to work with the manufacturer of specific strains to learn at what levels their organisms have been studied and clinically proven effective.
