A new way forward for microbiome health
Postbiotics are a fast-emerging technology
Postbiotics is a term which is gaining momentum in the health industry and there is an excellent reason for that. Scientific research suggests that they confer various health benefits through the immune cascade. Manufacturers and the food processing industry find it advantageous due to ease-of-use and advantages in stability.
What is postbiotics?
They are an umbrella term for deactivated probiotic products, their cellular components or the metabolites produced through fermentation. Primarily, they refer to whole cell probiotics that are safely treated (such as heat treatment or cell lysis) and thus deactivated. When a probiotic microbe gets deactivated, they lose the capacity to ferment, while gaining greater stability to environmental conditions as well as being able to enrich the microbiome that is currently colonizing your gut. Their cell components can be broken down to confer additional benefits to the consumer as well as their microbiome.
In a lesser use of the term, it refers to fermentation products and metabolites that probiotic microbes produce in controlled conditions. These metabolites can be used as a mixture or treated further to isolate key components. Microbial ferments have been used in several healthcare and beauty products for a long time.
What are the benefits of postbiotics?
Scientists are moving towards a consensus and agree there are numerous benefits of postbiotics when used on their own as well as with other active components such as probiotics or prebiotics. Most of these discussions boils down to conferring systemic health benefits through immunomodulation, regulating the gut-host-immune system cross-talk and enrichment of the gut microbiome.
Postbiotics can be used in a range of products and by various industry sectors including.
- Functional Foods
- Cosmetics
- Therapeutics
- Agricultural (or pet) biomacromolecules.
Some of these findings have been validated independently by the Mucosal Immunology Research Group at Griffith University on the Gold Coast, Probiotics Australia’s postbiotics have significant shelf-life benefits when compared to live probiotics. The consensus statement by the International Scientific Association of Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) in May, 2021 (Salminen et al., Nat Rev Gasteroenterol Hepatol, 2021), after reviewing research from across the globe in the past decade, have observed and listed various benefits conferred by postbiotics for metabolic health, systemic and neural health, enhancing epithelial barrier function as well as modulation of the gut microbiome in favour of beneficial microbes.
Maybe your next supplement, cake or coffee might have a carefully crafted postbiotic product made by Probiotics Australia!
(Reference: Salminen, S., Collado, M.C., Endo, A. et al. The International Scientific Association of Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) consensus statement on the definition and scope of postbiotics. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 18, 649–667 (2021).)
Other Benefits of postbiotics
Postbiotics are suitable where immune health benefits are desired, while processing and storage conditions pose a challenge to probiotics or other active compounds. Using them in a blend can leverage advantages of both probiotics and postbiotics, while the postbiotics compliment and support the capacities of probiotics and the host microbiome. They show certain advantages similar to spore-forming bacteria without the risk of contamination of production and processing facilities.
Would you like to know more about postbiotics?
Download our Explain the Innovation fact sheet to find out more, or contact Probiotics Australia for further information.
Why not have a discussion with us to help choose the right product for your intended use? We are leading the way in Australia in several commercial applications in this field of dietary supplements and functional foods, including the use of new and innovative products – Postbiotics is just the tip of the ice berg!
Current products available & sales opportunities
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