Mainstream Food Firms Get Proactive About Probiotics .... Washington Post April 15, 2008

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from a silent sister:

Mainstream Food Firms Get Proactive About

Probiotics By Sally Squires

Washington Post Tuesday,

April 15, 2008; Page HE08 How about having some bugs with your breakfast cereal?

That's the idea behind the growing nutritional trend

of eating food with probiotics -- friendly bacterial strains that may help

thwart an array of conditions from allergies, asthma and eczema to

gastrointestinal ailments. The potential for probiotics is huge, since their use

seems to have virtually no side effects. Exploiting friendly microbes also fits

with the trend to promote health and treat conditions with fewer prescription

medications. So it should be no surprise to see probiotics turning

up in breakfast cereals, yogurt, beverages and cheese. (See the box at right.)

And they're not just relegated to the dusty corners of health food aisles.

Kraft, Post, Dannon and Kashi are among the mainstream companies selling

probiotic products. Dannon is even using the teenage sensation Miley Cyrus

(a.k.a. Hannah Montana)

to help market one of its probiotic lines -- Danimals -- to your kids. Probiotics seem to work by changing the mix of

bacteria that already colonize our bodies. In the gastrointestinal tract,

having more healthy bacteria can help squeeze out unfriendly microbes.

Probiotics have shown some potential in thwarting the food-borne infections

such as salmonella and E. coli.

They seem to be effective in helping to treat rotavirus, which strikes infants

and children, and they show promise against C.

difficile, a gastrointestinal infection that often hits the elderly

in assisted living and nursing homes. Probiotics appear to help ease

irregularity and can prevent the diarrhea that often occurs with antibiotic

use. The friendly bacteria in probiotics also appear to

help to dampen overactive immune systems that result in allergies, asthma and

other autoimmune conditions. For example, consider some new Finnish findings from a

study in which infants with a family history of allergies were given

probiotics: At age 2, these children were less likely to develop eczema, an

itchy chronic skin condition, than their counterparts who didn't receive

probiotics. Probiotics could also boost overall health. In one recent

German study, researchers found that regular consumption of probiotics cut the

duration of the common cold by two days and lessened symptoms when colds

occurred. A handful of studies have shown that healthy adults and children who

took probiotics had fewer school and work absences than their counterparts who

didn't. "It's real interesting," notes

microbiologist Ellen , executive director of the International

Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics. Even so, and others probing probiotics say

there still isn't enough positive evidence to support their widespread use.

"I would not want to offer any false hope," says Bob Rastall, head of

the department of food bioscience at Britain 's

University of

Reading . "We still need to do more

work." That's because scientists still can't agree on an

exact definition of probiotics. Some say that probiotics include any food, such

as yogurt or kefir, with live cultures of friendly bacteria. But the microbes

in those products don't always survive transit through the acid-filled stomach.

So other scientists say that a true probiotic must contain enough hearty

cultures to survive and produce measurable health effects. "There are a lot of products calling themselves

probiotic foods, but we don't know if they have efficacious levels" of

bacteria, says. It's difficult for consumers to know what to choose,

she says, "because there's no stamp of approval where these things have

been evaluated by independent third parties." Still unproven are which strains of friendly bacteria

are best to use for what purposes. There's little knowledge of the optimal

doses for effectiveness, and there's uncertainty about the best way to deliver

probiotics. Should they be given in dietary supplements -- the method used by

many studies -- or added to food? Even says she often struggles to determine

what strains and amounts of probiotics are in various foods and other products.

So what does she do? She checks the company Web sites

for information. And if they don't provide what she is looking for, she calls

the company. "It's very easy to say that all probiotics will

work," says. "But they won't all work, and it is a detriment

to the industry as a whole to say that there is this sort of generic approach

that any product [with probiotics] will do anything." But if you and your family enjoy the growing array of

foods that contain live cultures, that's another story. "I would be

perfectly happy to feed my kids probiotics," says Rastall, who often

serves them to his children. "And I do eat them myself."

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