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Transcript

Hello everyone. Welcome back. In the last lecture we have studied about the probiotics, synbiotics, prebiotics, their definition, parts and different organization and research institutes, who are busy in maintaining the cultures and other research activities related to probiotics and the various probiotic products available in the market.

Let’s start with the lecture,’ Beneficial Effects of Probiotics’. Probiotics have many benefits, like they

• improve tolerance of lactose, like people who are lactose intolerant. They improve the lactose intolerance
• Then protection from the gastro-enteritis.
• reduce the toxins because toxins are harmful or to the human beings.
• and cholesterol reduction.
• And probiotics they also help in the synthesis of vitamins also.
• And they are helpful to reduce the irritable bowel syndrome,
• improve the digestion and gut function.
• avoid the food allergy
• immune regulation
• And enhance the mineral bio-availability. Calcium, phosphorus and other minerals.

Now the physiological effects of probiotics. Here you can see that the probiotics help in the

• synthesis of the vitamins, like vitamin B12,
• and helps in the metabolism of the bile acids,
• production of short chain fatty acids; because short chain fatty acids they have the beneficial effects,
• reduction of the pH in the large bowel,
• immune system activation
• and development of mucosal barrier. They produce the barrier by colonization with the mucosal sites, and or inhibit the entry of the pathogens.

Here the probiotics, they have the anti-pathogenic activity. Anti-pathogenic activity. Like they work antimicrobial the during processing anti-microbial peptides and bacteriocins are produced. And these antimicrobial peptides and bacteriocins; they act as a inhibitory substances for the pathogens, means in the presence of these anti-microbial peptides and bactriocins pathogens, they are not able to grow. Then these anti-microbial peptides and bacteriocins; they are responsible or increase the permeability of the cytoplasmic membrane of the targeted cells. And when the permeability of the cytoplasmic membrane will increase, they release the small cytoplasmic particles, and by this depolarization of the membrane potential will be there, which leads to the; finally the cell death, and that is the aim. And all these activities are carried out when we are using probiotics. So probiotics act as a anti-pathogens.

Now the production of short chain fatty acids, how it takes place. Prebiotics like fructo-oligosaccharide or inulin also. We can take inulin also. And then the prebiotics, they are added to the probiotics; live microbes that is bifidobacteria or either it may be bifidobacteria species, it may be lacto-bacillus. When both are there, they cause fermentation, because this is a substrate and this is a micro-organism which utilize this substrate. During fermentation, what happened. Short chain fatty acids, they produce, that is called SCFA. And these short chain fatty acids they produce butyric acid, propionic acid and acetic acid, which inhibit the growth of the pathogens.

Probiotics have various health benefits and they help in lactose intolerance, the persons who are suffering from the lack or less secretion of the beta-galactosidase enzyme which is responsible for the lactose digestion for that persons. Probiotics also helpful in the thermogenesis and modification in the energy expenditure and that is related to the obesity also. And they protected or provide encapsulation of the flavors, act as a anti-diabetic. Another health benefit is immune-modulation, means any kind of change in the immune system that is desirable. Also reduced energy. Then rheological modification. Rheological modification means texture, flavor and other kinds of modifications that are desirable from the texture and flavor point of view of the product.

Now improvement of survival of probiotics. As we have discussed earlier that their survivability, their viability, it is very important. And there are some latest concept. By adopting that concept we can improve their viability. Because viability is a very important factor, we can say a very important aspect in case of probiotics. Like one example I should quote here, that is we use micro-encapsulation. Micro-encapsulation is a technique, that is a very latest technique. Now the nano-encapsulation is also there. And microencapsulation is very popular. Here what we do. We take a cell material or wall material and we encapsulate, if we want to encapsulate any kind of live micro-organisms or any kind of flavor compound we use the wall material, and that wall material provides protection to that parameter; it may be a flavor, it may be viability and other aspects.

And for the probiotics, heat from pelleting and length of storage, these are very important parameters. Like length of storage, because during storage, the viability definitely reduced because they are viable, they are live and it will cause the non-viability of the product. That is not desirable. But is natural, it happens during storage. So we have to improve the survivability and the technique is microencapsulation, I have told you in which we use some artificial biological membrane or any kind of covering that is based on the research finding. And provide good barrier property to that product.

And then prebiotics. Addition of prebiotics such as inulin or fructo-oligosaccharides etc, they will also helpful to improve the survivability of the probiotics. Then other food supplements like addition of food additives. In food additives we can say the fibers, the vitamins, the proteins which are lacking, because the growth will take place in a total medium which has, a media which has a protein source, energy source, carbohydrate source, vitamin source and other factors. So by micro-encapsulation, by use of prebiotics and by use of food supplements like fibers and vitamins, we can improve or we can enhance the survivability of the probiotics.

Then there are certainly some challenges to the Indian market or the Indian probiotic products, that are very important. First important aspect is misconception. Misconception is people are not aware of their beneficial effects. How they works, their availability. And they have misconception in mind that they are not good from the safety point of view, if we take them continuously. This is the one factor. Secondly, gap of knowledge. There is no proper advertisement about that product. So people are not aware which probiotics are available in the market. And another important aspect is the scientific evidence and clinical trials. Lots of researches have been done to prove them scientifically. They are beneficial and the clinical studies also. So there is lack of evidence. We have lots of research, lots of literature also, but still the clinical studies are less.

Then next challenge is the inappropriate labelling of the organism. Here labelling part it is very important to mention the micro-organism, the probiotic culture that we are using. How much like the viable microbes are present at the time of packaging. How long we can use that probiotic product, because during storage definitely the number of the microbes will be lowest down. And one more aspect is safety studies. Like there are still the things are not clear regarding the safety issues like how much we should  have how long we should have. So these terms should be very clear to make these products more reliable. Then access is limited to the affluent class only. The people’s of the low economic group, they are not able to access them. Then technological challenges in maintaining the viability. And very prominent example of this technological challenges is to maintain the cold chain. In our Indian conditions it is very difficult to maintain the cold chain. And these microbes because they are live, I am telling again and again, they are live, they are viable. So temperature is very important parameter. If continuously we are not maintaining the temperature, their number will be reduced. And they will not able to provide the desired beneficial effect. So temperature is very important here.

Now this is a figure which gives you a complete idea, a complete, we can say a map about probiotics. Probiotics, they work importantly like in immuno-modulation, helps in normalized intestinal microbial composition and metabolic effects. Here we can see that immuno-modulation, it will leads to the balanced immune response, and control the, if the balance immune response will be there, it will be helpful to control the inflammatory bowel disease. And same parameter it will affect or alleviate food allergy or the symptoms of food allergy in infants and other peoples also. And immune-modulation also leads to strengthen the innate immunity. They are correlated. Then this normalized intestinal microbiota composition. If the microbiota composition or gut microbiota composition is healthy and normal, then it will control the irritable bowel syndrome. And this normalized intestinal microbiota, it will lead to the colonization resistance; means colonization resistance means they are able to make their colonies, make their growth. And their number will be dominate here, and when they their number will be dominated, their population will be dominated. They will not allow the pathogens to enter and even if some pathogens will enter, they will not allow them to survive even. And they will lead the suppression of the endogenous pathogens. Example, anti-biotic associated diarrhea.

Then it also suppress the endogenous pathogens. And example of this kind of infection is travelers diarrhea. Now come to the metabolic effects. In metabolic effects, they produce short chain fatty acids, folin synthesis of vitamins. For example folate and vitamin B12 to the colonic epithelium. And supply of short chain fatty acids, it will reduce risk of factors for the colon cancer. Then come to the this metabolic processes/effects. They help lower the level of toxigenic or mutagenic reactions in the gut. All these main three effects, they are correlated. The microbiota will be good in the gut. Then the colonization resistance will be there. And similarly you can see here the metabolic effects, it will lead to bile salt secretion and deconjugation and secretion also. And lactase hydrolysis. And if lactase hydrolysis will be there, it will improve the lactose intolerance. And the people who are lactose intolerant, it will help to them also.

So this figure gives a complete re-aspect of the probiotics, their working behavior and beneficial effects also. So this is all about the working pattern of the probiotics. The different probiotic products and all.

Thank You.