Probiotics, Prebiotics, Synbiotics, and Foodborne Illness

Probiotic bacteria and prebiotic compounds can inhibit foodborne pathogenic bacteria or reduce their ability to infect the host, and therefore they can potentially contribute to reducing the frequency and severity of foodborne disease. Probiotics can reduce the carriage of foodborne pathogens by food animals, thereby decreasing the pathogen load entering the human food chain. They can also be applied as starter cultures or protective cultures in certain foods to help eliminate contaminating pathogens. Animal models have been used to determine the antimicrobial efficacy of probiotics against specific pathogens in vivo (due to the difficulty in conducting human trials with pathogenic microorganisms) and demonstrated significant inhibition in some cases. Human clinical trials have focused on acute infectious diarrhea, particularly in infants, and traveler’s diarrhea. Results are variable, and statistical power is often inadequate even for trials with positive results, but there is good evidence to support the use of certain probiotics, notably Saccharomyces boulardii and Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, for the prevention and treatment of diarrhea.