Probiotics: Reiterating What They Are and What They Are Not

Gregor Reid; Azza A Gadir; Raja Dhir

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2019.00424

Probiotics: Reiterating What They Are and What They Are Not

Front Microbiol. 2019 Mar 12:10:424. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.00424. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Gregor Reid^{1

2}, Azza A Gadir^{3

4}, Raja Dhir⁵

Affiliations

¹ Canadian R&D Centre for Human Microbiome and Probiotics, Lawson Health Research Institute, London, ON, Canada.
² Departments of Microbiology and Immunology and Surgery, Western University, London, ON, Canada.
³ Division of Immunology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States.
⁴ Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
⁵ Seed, Los Angeles, CA, United States.

Abstract

It has been over seventeen years since the scientific definition of probiotics was crafted, along with guidelines ensuring the appropriate use of the term. This definition is now used globally, yet on a consistent basis scientists, media and industry misrepresent probiotics or make generalized statements that illustrate a misunderstanding of their utility and limitations. The rate of discovery of novel organisms with potentially therapeutic benefit for both human and environmental health is progressing at an unprecedented rate. However, the term "probiotic" is often misapplied to describe any microbe with plausible therapeutic utility in the human host. It is argued that strict compliance to the scientific definition of the term "probiotic" and avoidance of generalizations to the whole field of probiotics based upon studies of one product, will help advance the development and validation of microbial therapies, and applications to improve human health.

Keywords: human health; human microbiome; microbial therapies; probiotics; requirements; scientific definition; stewardship; translational microbiology.