Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 May 12:14:1196239.
doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1196239. eCollection 2023.

Fermented foods: a perspective on their role in delivering biotics

Gabriel Vinderola  1 , Paul D Cotter  2 , Miguel Freitas  3 , Miguel Gueimonde  4 , Hannah D Holscher  5 , Patricia Ruas-Madiedo  4 , Seppo Salminen  6 , Kelly S Swanson  7 , Mary Ellen Sanders  8 , Christopher J Cifelli  9
Affiliations

Fermented foods: a perspective on their role in delivering biotics

Gabriel Vinderola et al. Front Microbiol. .

Abstract

Fermented foods are often erroneously equated with probiotics. Although they might act as delivery vehicles for probiotics, or other 'biotic' substances, including prebiotics, synbiotics, and postbiotics, stringent criteria must be met for a fermented food to be considered a 'biotic'. Those criteria include documented health benefit, sufficient product characterization (for probiotics to the strain level) and testing. Similar to other functional ingredients, the health benefits must go beyond that of the product's nutritional components and food matrix. Therefore, the 'fermented food' and 'probiotic' terms may not be used interchangeably. This concept would apply to the other biotics as well. In this context, the capacity of fermented foods to deliver one, several, or all biotics defined so far will depend on the microbiological and chemical level of characterization, the reproducibility of the technological process used to produce the fermented foods, the evidence for health benefits conferred by the biotics, as well as the type and amount of testing carried out to show the probiotic, prebiotic, synbiotic, and postbiotic capacity of that fermented food.

Keywords: fermented foods; postbiotics; prebiotics; probiotics; synbiotics.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

GV and SS serves in the board of directors of ISAPP and have been speakers in scientific meetings supported by the fermented food industry. PC has been funded by PrecisionBiotics Group, Friesland Campine, Danone, and PepsiCo. He has also received funding to travel to or present at meetings by H&H, the National Dairy Council U.S., PepsiCo and Yakult. MF is the employee of Health and Scientific Affairs, Danone North America and board member of the International Probiotics Association. KS serves in the board of directors of ISAPP. MS serves as the executive science officer/executive director for the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP), has been a paid consultant for Bayer, Pepsico, Smith Gambrell & Russell LLP, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has been a paid speaker for Associated British Foods, European Federation of the Associations of Dietitians, Fairlife, Omnibiotic/Allergosan, Probi, Sanofi, Xpeer, has served on scientific advisory boards for Danone North America, Cargill, Winclove, has served in an unpaid (except for travel reimbursement) for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences and United States Pharmacopeia. CC is currently employed by the National Dairy Council. HH has received grant funding from Bio-Cat, Danone Research, General Mills, and Tate & Lyle. She has received speaking honorarium from Beneo, DSM, National Dairy Council, PepsiCo, and Tate & Lyle. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Different possible physiological states of a microorganism in a fermented food.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. ATLAS Collaboration. Asemi Z., Samimi M., Tabassi Z., Naghibi Rad M., Rahimi Foroushani A., et al. (2013). Effect of daily consumption of probiotic yoghurt on insulin resistance in pregnant women: a randomized controlled trial. Eur. J. Clin. Nutr. 67, 71–74. doi: 10.1038/ejcn.2012.189, PMID: - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bourrie B. C. T., Cotter P. D., Willing B. P. (2018). Traditional kefir reduces weight gain and improves plasma and liver lipid profiles more successfully than a commercial equivalent in a mouse model of obesity. J. Funct. Foods 46, 29–37. doi: 10.1016/j.jff.2018.04.039 - DOI
    1. Bourrie B. C. T., Forgie A. J., Ju T., Richard C., Cotter P. D., Willing B. P. (2022). Consumption of the cell-free or heat-treated fractions of a pitched kefir confers some but not all positive impacts of the corresponding whole kefir. Front. Microbiol. 13:1056526. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.1056526, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bourrie B. C. T., Ju T., Fouhse J. M., Forgie A. J., Sergi C., Cotter P. D., et al. (2021). Kefir microbial composition is a deciding factor in the physiological impact of kefir in a mouse model of obesity. Br. J. Nutr. 125, 129–138. doi: 10.1017/S0007114520002743, PMID: - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bourrie B. C., Willing B. P., Cotter P. D. (2016). The microbiota and health promoting characteristics of the fermented beverage kefir. Front. Microbiol. 7:647. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2016.00647, PMID: - DOI - PMC - PubMed