Probiotic Cultures as Functional Foods

Abstract

Probiotics are novel functional ingredients that can be applied to influence the host’s microbiota, playing an important role in the nutrition, development and health of the host. This review presents the definitions of probiotics and summarizes the fields of their applications and benefits, and highlights the need of more research to properly describe the severity of adverse events related to probiotics. Research identifying the mechanisms of action for probiotic function and the development of assays to measure them are greatly needed to better understand if such changes have an essential impact on probiotic efficacy.