1: Br J Nutr 1998 Oct;80(4):S197-202
Prebiotics and synbiotics: concepts and nutritional properties.
Roberfroid MB
Universite Catholique de Louvain, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences,
Brussels, Belgium.
The main role of diet is to provide enough nutrients to meet the requirements
of a balanced diet, while giving the consumer a feeling of satisfaction
and well-being. The most recent knowledge in bioscience supports the hypothesis
that diet also controls and modulates various functions in the body, and,
in doing so, contributes to the state of good health necessary to reduce
the risk of some diseases. It is such an hypothesis which is at the origin
both of the concept of 'functional food' and the development of a new scientific
discipline of 'functional food science'. In the context of this paper the
potential 'functional foods' to be discussed are the prebiotics and the
synbiotics. The prebiotics developed so far are the non-digestible oligosaccharides
and especially the non-digestible fructans among which chicory fructans
play a major role. The chicory fructans are beta (2-1) fructo-oligosaccharides
classified as natural food ingredients. They positively affect various
physiological functions in such a way that they are already or may, in
the future, be classified as functional food ingredients for which claims
of functional effects or of disease risk reduction might become authorized.
They are classified as prebiotic and have been shown to induce an increase
in the number of bifidobacteria in human faecal flora. As part of a synbiotic-type
product, they are already bifidogenic at a dose of 2.75 g/d and the effect
lasts for at least 7 weeks. The other potential functional effects are
on the bioavailability of minerals, but also, and more systemically, on
the metabolism of lipids. Potential health benefits may concern reduction
of the risk of intestinal infectious diseases, cardiovascular disease,
non-insulin-dependent diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis and cancer. However,
except for the prebiotic effect, and tentatively the improvement of calcium
bioavailability, the evidence to support such effects is still missing
in humans though hypotheses already exist to justify nutrition studies.
Publication Types:
Review
Review, tutorial
PMID: 9924284, UI: 99123359