DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PREBIOTICS AND PROBIOTICS

Pre­bi­otics are in­di­gestible food in­gre­di­ents and the pre­ferred nu­tri­tion of the mi­cro-or­gan­isms that pro­mote health. Pre­bi­otics se­lec­tively pro­mote the growth, but also the ac­tiv­ity of one or more ­bacteria in the colon, and so have pos­i­tive ef­fect on our health. This ef­fect is known as the “bi­di­fus fac­tor”. Pre­bi­otics can be of veg­etable ori­gin, such as in­ulin and oligofruc­tose, or can de­rived from milk, such as galac­tooligosac­cha­rides


Pro­bi­otics
 are liv­ing mi­cro-or­gan­isms that are ac­tive in suf­fi­cient num­bers in the colon and have a pos­i­tive ef­fect on our health. The spe­cial ­feature of pro­bi­otics is that they sur­vive at­tacks from gas­tric and bile acids and so reach the colon safely. ­Probiotic bac­te­ria mainly be­long to the Lac­to­bacil­lus and Bi­fi­dobac­terium gen­era.

Source:  Gib­son GR & Rober­froid MB (1995). Di­etary ­modulation of the human colonic mi­cro-biota: In­tro­duc­ing the con­cept of ­prebiotics, Jour­nal of Nu­tri­tion, Vol. 125, No. 6, 1401–1412

Fur­ther in­for­ma­tion

 

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