Clarifying Prebiotic Health Effects With Global Standards

Scientists have introduced a unified global standard to clarify which substances genuinely qualify as prebiotics.

Unified global approach to defining prebiotic substances has been proposed by a new study, clarifying confusion about which dietary compounds truly confer health benefits through the gut microbiota, amid rapid advances in microbiome research, as published in Nature Reviews Gastroenterology and Hepatology ().

Now a group of eight leading international scientists has developed a comprehensive framework that outlines the criteria for establishing prebiotic status, providing much-needed clarity in this evolving field.

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This new expert recommendation addresses the key challenges related to scientific substantiation of prebiotics and offers practical guidelines for accurately identifying prebiotics and assessing their health effects.

The publication resulted from collaborations coordinated through the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP).

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The authors detail a clear scientific pathway for demonstrating prebiotic effects, emphasizing that prebiotics must meet several essential criteria.

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First and foremost, a prebiotic must be a well-characterized substance that provides a measurable health benefit.

In addition, it must be selectively utilized by host microorganisms, show measurable effects on microbiome composition or function, have a plausible mechanism linking the microbiome changes to the observed health benefit, and be safe for its intended use. Importantly, at least one study in the target host is required to demonstrate both microbiome modulation and a health benefit concurrently.

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Two of the most important challenges addressed within the paper are the validation of selective utilization within the complexity of the microbial ecosystem’s response to a prebiotic intervention, as well as methods for delineating the mediation of health benefits via microbiome-based mechanisms.

The authors say that over time they hope regulatory and commercial approaches to prebiotics will increasingly align with the scientific criteria they specified.

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“The criteria provide a foundation for understanding what prebiotics are and how to substantiate them, which is essential for the field going forward,” says lead author Prof. Robert Hutkins, University of Nebraska.

“Our hope is that scientists around the world take a unified approach to demonstrating the prebiotic status of an ingredient, which will promote clarity and support informed decision-making around prebiotic products.”

Reference:

Classifying compounds as prebiotics - scientific perspectives and recommendations - (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41575-024-00981-6)

Source-Eurekalert