Gastrointestinal Therapeutics

Biography

Biography: Dan Cristian Vodnar

Abstract

In the last decades consumer demands in the field of food production has changed considerably. Consumers more and more believe that foods contribute directly to their health. Today foods are not intended to only satisfy hunger and to provide necessary nutrients for humans but also to prevent nutrition-related diseases and improve physical and mental well-being of the consumers. A major concern in both developed and developing countries is gastrointestinal health from the point of view of the daily gastrointestinal comfort and also resistance to or prevention acute of chronic diseases such as infectious diarrhea and inflammatory bowel diseases. There is a demand for products that can be consumed on a daily basis that can provide such benefits. Probiotics are defined as ‘‘live microorganisms, as they are consumed in adequate numbers confer a health benefit on the host’’, with ongoing controversy as to whether cultures must be viable for efficacy in all cases. Probiotics can be used as drugs, but also in food or food supplements. A good probiotic must fulfil some characteristics: to be able to adhere to the gut wall, to reduce or exclude the adherence of pathogens, to be able to persist, multiply and produce some substances antagonistic to pathogen growth, to be able to co-aggregate as to form a balanced flora. Nowadays, there are evidences for the use of pre, pro and synbiotics in many diseases. In the gastroenterology field, they are used in irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel diseases, diverticular disease, and in Helicobacter pylori infection eradication. In order to produce therapeutic benefits ingested probiotics must survive transit thought the gastro-intestinal environment and reach the colon in large quantities to facilitate colonization and to exert beneficial effect on host. Currently, a problem is represented by the survivability of bacteria in food matrices. The several key issues regarding current status of development of probiotics markets will be discussed during this presentation.