Short communication: Can the supplementation with prebiotics enhance probiotic action? The symbiotics

The balance between species of indigenous bacteria provides for the maintenance of human health. In fact distortions in the composition of this bacterial community or impaired homeostasis are often associated with pathological conditions. Restoring the balance of the microbiota should be proven advantageous for disease treatment and prevention. These considerations justify the exponentially increased interest towards probiotics, prebiotics and symbiotics. The symbiotics could beneficially affect the host by improving survival and implantation of living microbial dietary supplements in the gastrointestinal flora, by selectively stimulating the growth of one or a limited number of health-promoting bacteria in the intestinal tract and by improving the gastrointestinal tract’s microbial balance. Prebiotics and probiotics together act separately within the small and large intestine, but they synergistically improve the overall gut health. The consumption of association of probiotics and prebiotics appropriately selected seems increase the beneficial effects of each of them but there are not enough data available to establish if symbiotics are superior to probiotics. Therefore the field of symbiotics may potentially open a new branch of science. Further basic and clinical researches are needed for better understanding the underlying mechanisms of the therapeutic effect of symbiotic supplementation.