This section gives an overview of developments in this area including opportunities for novel functional foods. The rare involvement of lactobacilli and starter bacteria in human infections is mentioned and a summary of traditional microbiological approaches to the enumeration of probiotic bacteria is included.

The last major update to this article was published in February 2008, since then there have been a number of significant developments. These include the failure of some major European dairy companies to obtain ratification by the EFSA of health claims for probiotic products, the deaths of patients on a probiotic trial in the Netherlands, evidence that perhaps some bacteria designated as probiotics may have the potential to aggravate allergies in neonates. Additionally one major researcher has questioned where any strain of Lb. acidophilus has been shown to meet the criteria for a probiotic! However, there has been other more positive research indicating that particular strains of bacteria, in particular lactic acid bacteria, do have the potential to enhance immunity, reduce allergy, and to alleviate distant site infection. This work has very clearly shown that dairy companies and others have a responsibility to use only well characterised strains that have been shown to have probiotic effects in medical trials. Interesting Reid (2007) has stated "A potential major problem for probiotics is the misuse of the term. This can arise from products being poorly manufactured, or being referred to as probiotic without any relevant documentation. The net effect, deleterious to the overall field of probiotics, might be that such products are found to be ineffective, when in fact they were not even probiotic in the first place." Interestingly there is now a growing consensus that there is a world-wide, critical shortage of well qualified food scientists and technologists in commercial food manufacturing. These developments will be taken into consideration in the next major update to this article in 2009.

 Living microorganisms are widely used for several therapeutic purposes and their beneficial effects as biotherapeutic agents are well known. While certain strains of lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria are used as probiotics in pharmaceutical preparations, feed additives and so-called functional foods yeasts also possess some medicinal efficiency.

Following E-mail requests to provide a list of refereed citations or references to quality scientific literature covering definitions, prebiotics and synbiotics, the classification, isolation, enumeration of probiotic microorganisms; clinical trials including their effect on human fertility and reproductive health, gut development and function, topical gut infections e.g. Clostridium difficile; health of infants, people with AIDS, and the elderly; and distant site infection a ‘downloadable’ list has been prepared.

The list of references is in rich text format (RTF) and can be viewed and edited using most word processing software on PCs using Microsoft, Mac and Linux operating systems.

The references have been prepared in a Harvard-style format e.g.
Antonio, M.A., Rabe, L.K. and Hillier, S.L. (2005). Colonization of the rectum by Lactobacillus species and decreased risk of bacterial vaginosis. Journal of Infectious Diseases. 192(3):394-8.

The reference list at the 6 January 2010 is at version 1.2 and when printed on to A4 paper will give eleven to 13 (11-13) pages of single spaced citations, depending on how your word processing programme is configured, containing some 133 individual references.

Who will benefit from the reference list?

The list should be of interest to students writing essays on probiotics, undergraduate and postgraduate students commencing research on probiotics, staff in food companies working on the development and/or marketing of probiotics, journalists, food writers, parents and the general public wanting to access current developments e.g. what well publicised probiotic was found to potentially aggravate allergic reactions in mice and what are the implications for babies?

Making a contribution to the development and operating costs of the Dairy Science and Food Technology website

The list can be downloaded after making a donation of £5.99 towards site hosting, maintenance and development using PayPal by clicking the payment button below.

Once you have paid you will shortly receive an Email giving you a download URL.  You will be able to download the references for 7 days from your payment date; you can make up to 4-downloads over this time.

Legal and other information

While the list of references has been carefully checked there may still be some errors. If you cannot find a particular reference because the details provided contain an error or errors then, Email the details to me at michael.mullan@dairyscience.info including ‘Reference list errors’ in the title and I will usually respond within 3 working days except during holiday periods. Note you will still have to obtain the individual references. These can be obtained from libraries and or the Internet. If you are unhappy with the list of references I will return your donation minus PayPal processing fees.