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Probiotics are recognised as friendly bacteria that are good for you. Research steadily offers more indication areas, where probiotics may improve your general health and well-being. Key is clinical documentation and application knowledge.

Basically, probiotics are healthy, living bacteria naturally occurring in a variety of food ingredients. Traditionally these bacteria have been used to make fermented food products e.g. cheese, kefir and yoghurt. Today, the probiotic bacteria used in food and dietary supplements are harvested via a highly controlled fermentation process. This process results in high numbers of bacteria and ensures quality and purity of the bacteria.

Nowadays probiotics are well established as safe and healthy and are consumed every day by millions of people worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines probiotics as: “Live micro-organisms which when administrated in adequate amounts confer health benefits to the host”

This article is available in full in the Spring 2008 issue of Nutraceuticals Now