Probiotics: Role in the prevention of chronic viral diseases

Abstract

Viral infections are the most critical among infectious diseases, especially those that can lead to chronic diseases. The control and the prevention of chronic diseases represent a challenge for public health organizations. These chronic diseases are the major cause of death worldwide. To achieve the greatest impact, public health campaigns should focus on creating novel treatment and prevention strategies against chronic viral diseases. Probiotics are defined as live microorganisms with beneficial effects for humans. Probiotic strains have shown antiviral activity against a variety of infectious viruses such as respiratory and enteric viruses. In this chapter, we discuss the possible role of probiotic strains in chronic viral infections and their benefits in therapy strategies against such diseases. Data from numerous studies has shown that the use of probiotic as therapeutic agents is safe and inexpensive and can avoid the need for invasive treatment for several chronic viral infections caused by HIV, HCV, HTLV, HPV, CVB4, etc. The principal mechanisms of the antiviral activity of the probiotic strains studied until now were the production of antiviral compounds, the immunomodulatory effect, and virus trapping by the probiotic cell wall.