Formulating Synbiotics for Improved Human Health

Bob HUTKINS

Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Nebraska, United States

As envisioned more than 20 years ago, one way to improve the functionality of probiotic bacteria is by combining them with prebiotics in the form of a synbiotic.  Most synbiotics that have been used in clinical trials have been of the complementary type, where the probiotic and prebiotic each act independently.  In contrast, synergistic synbiotics, where the probiotic is known to be stimulated by the prebiotic, have rarely been systematically studied in vivo.  In this presentation, strategies for formulating synbiotics will be reviewed.  In particular, the concept of in vivo selection (IVS) will be presented and a clinical study based on one such strain, Bifidobacterium adolescentisIVS-1, will be described.  In this randomized, controlled trial, intestinal permeability was measured in obese adults before and 3 weeks after consumption of a synbiotic containing B. adolescentis IVS-1 + GOS.  The results showed that IVS-1 reached significantly higher cell numbers than an allochthonous strain, with or without GOS.  In addition, both the pro- and prebiotic components by themselves improved markers of colonic permeability.  This study also demonstrated that autochthony may be as important for probiotic functionality as is availability of a prebiotic.