Critical Overview of Probiotics Efficacy on Health and its Safety

Abstract

The review is to analyse the therapeutic benefits of probiotics in various chronic disorders. All the data were identified using PUBMED (2000-2020) and bibliographic reviews of recent and old articles from an English literature search. After independent analysis by co-authors of the identified articles, data were analysed and extracted for the stated purpose.The most-studied species include Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, and Saccharomyces. Probiotics have an essential role in maintaining immunologic equilibrium in the gastrointestinal tract through direct interaction with immune cells. There is high-quality evidence that probiotics are effective for acute infectious diarrhoea, antibiotic-associated diarrhea, Clostridium difficile associated diarrhoea, hepatic encephalopathy, ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, and necrotizing enterocolitis. Probiotics are safe for infants, children, adults, and older patients.Therapeutic applications of probiotics have been widely studied to treat and improve the gut's health; however, choosing a probiotic for a specific condition is a challenging task that requires parsing of the data for strain-specific efficacy and evaluation of product quality. It appears likely that more national organizations will be conducting evidence-based research, and the pharmacist and clinicians should pay attention to this ever-changing field.