Sanders Mary Ellen
International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics and Dairy and Food Culture Technologies, Centennial, Colorado 80122, USA.
Clin Infect Dis. 2008 Feb 1;46 Suppl 2:S58-61; discussion S144-51. doi: 10.1086/523341.
Interest in probiotics is at an all-time high in the United States, driven in part by new products emerging in the market, by US researchers eager to evaluate efficacy claims rigorously, and by consumers interested in potential therapeutic and preventive health benefits. The US marketplace is a mixed bag of products, some well-defined and properly evaluated in controlled clinical studies and others with unsubstantiated claims of efficacy. Validation of probiotic contents in commercial products is needed to ensure consumer confidence. The term "probiotic" should be used only for products that meet the scientific criteria for this term-namely, products that contain an adequate dose of live microbes that have been documented in target-host studies to confer a health benefit. Probiotics must be identified to the level of strain, must be characterized for the specific health target, and must be formulated into products using strains and doses shown to be efficacious. Several characteristics commonly presumed to be essential to probiotics, such as human origin and the ability to improve the balance of the intestinal microbiota, are discussed.
在美国，对益生菌的兴趣空前高涨，部分原因在于市场上出现的新产品、渴望严格评估功效宣称的美国研究人员，以及对潜在治疗和预防健康益处感兴趣的消费者。美国市场上的产品参差不齐，一些产品在对照临床研究中得到了明确界定和恰当评估，而另一些产品的功效宣称则未经证实。需要对商业产品中的益生菌成分进行验证，以确保消费者的信心。“益生菌”一词应仅用于符合该术语科学标准的产品，即含有足够剂量活微生物的产品，这些微生物在针对目标宿主的研究中已被证明能带来健康益处。益生菌必须鉴定到菌株水平，必须针对特定健康目标进行表征，并且必须使用已证明有效的菌株和剂量制成产品。本文讨论了一些通常被认为是益生菌必不可少的特征，例如源自人类以及改善肠道微生物群平衡的能力。
