Natural gums (gum Arabic, guar gum and xanthan gum) as a promising source of prebiotics: a review on their functional roles and food applications.

Probiotics are live and non-pathogenic bacteria that confer several health benefits to the human body when ingested in adequate amounts. Unfortunately, viability and function of probiotics in food and beverages can be affected by a myriad of factors including product composition, processing and storage conditions. On the other hand, prebiotics are non-digestible carbohydrates (oligosaccharides) that can enhance viability or support growth of probiotics. Many of these oligosaccharides can be sourced from natural gums which have been widely used in the food industry mainly to improve food texture. This review discusses the potential of natural gums as prebiotics, including gum Arabic (as a source of plant gum), guar gum (as a source of seeds gum) and xanthan gum (as a source of microbial gum), and their promising applications in the probiotic food industry such as production of synbiotic foods and probiotic microcapsules. Technical limitations in their application in food such as microbial degradation, decrease in viscosity during storage, pH-dependent solubility and unregulated hydration are also discussed. Also, the potential methods to prevent these limitations such as modification of natural gums by different methods were summarized. Furthermore, the future prospective and trends in the food applications of these natural gums were covered.