What are they?  Who are they good for?

Newslettter-ga,

According to the Wikipedia:
"Probiotics are dietary supplements containing potentially beneficial
bacteria and yeasts."

- Above from the Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probiotics

-----------------------------------

PDRHealth.com lists the following possible human uses:

"INDICATIONS AND USAGE

Probiotics have been used with some benefit in the prevention and
treatment of some gastrointestinal disorders, including
antibiotic-associated diarrhea and some infectious and viral
diarrheas, most notably rotavirus-induced diarrhea in infants and
children, lactose intolerance, sucrase and maltase deficiencies and
inflammatory bowel disease. Probiotics may be of benefit in some with
food allergies, but supporting evidence is preliminary. They may
favorably modulate immunity in some circumstances and may have
anticarcinogenic effects. There is the suggestion in some preliminary
research that they may have some hypocholesterolemic activity. There
is some evidence to support the use of probiotics to re-colonize the
vaginas of women with recurrent vaginosis."

- Above from PDRHealth.com
http://www.pdrhealth.com/drug_info/nmdrugprofiles/nutsupdrugs/pro_0034.shtml

------------------------------------------------

Thank you for using Google Answers.

-Hammer



Search strategy
-----------------
probiotics
define:probiotics

Additional Information
-----------------------
The Probiotics Web Page
http://www.highveld.com/pages/probiotic.html

Probiotics: Help or hype?
http://gerd.msn.com/article.aspx?aid=50

Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide
http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/update0905c.shtml

Probiotics-
"a mono- or mixed-culture of live microorganisms which, if applied to
man or animal, beneficially affects the host by improving the
properties of the indigenous microflora"

HAVENAAR & HUIS IN'T VELD (1992)

By definition, a probiotic must have beneficial affects on man. Many
scientific studies (both on humans and animals)  suggest there are
benefits to probiotics, but as to what DEGREE these benefits are has
yet to be  completely decided by the scientific community. As the
saying goes ?more study is needed?.

Sources:

1) Cooperative Research Centre for Food Industry Innovation, Food Science Australia

2) http://www.vitacomrx.net/