Effects of Probiotics, Prebiotics, and Synbiotics on Hypercholesterolemia: A Review

Abstract

Cholesterol plays a major role in human health. High cholesterol is a leading risk factor for human cardiovascular disease such as atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, and stroke. Excess cholesterol in the bloodstream can form plaque in the artery walls. Hypercholesterolemia is a major risk factor for the development of atherosclerosis. A number of pharmacological and non-pharmacological (including dietary) approaches being employed to reduce the cholesterol level. Numerous drugs that lower serum cholesterol have been developed to treat hypercholesterolemic patients, the best example being the statins drugs (Atorvastatin, Simvastatin, Rosuvastatin, and Lovastatin). However, the undesirable side effects of these compounds were observed and have caused concern about their long term therapeutic use. Several studies have been reported that the consumption of fermented dairy products decreases serum cholesterol. Probiotics are live microorganisms that promote health benefits upon consumption, while prebiotics are nondigestible food ingredients that selectively stimulate the growth of beneficial microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract. Probiotics and prebiotics have been suggested to reduce cholesterol via various mechanisms without any deleterious effect to the human health. This paper may throw some light to prove the ability of these synbiotics as a novel alternative or adjuvant to chemical drugs to help fight the hypercholesterolemic problem.

Effect of Tempeh Supplementation on the Profiles of Human Intestinal Immune System and Gut Microbiota

“…Since the volunteers were not allowed to consume any probiotics during the intervention, it might lead to IgA reduction. IgA production is affected by the presence of probiotics bacteria (Anandharaj et al 2014). In our findings, milk supplementation could increase probiotic bacteria and led to IgA production, which might explain that IgA concentration on day 9, as the baseline was pretty high and close to IgA concentration after tempeh intervention.…”

Synbiotic as Feed Additives Relating to Animal Health and Performance

“…Probiotic is mainly lactic acid creating bacilli, mostly Lactobacilli [53]. Probiotic may play a beneficial role in several health conditions and performance, including Intestinal microbial composition, therapeutic effects, metabolic effects and immunomodulation [43] [54] [55]. The overall performance and well-being benefits of probiotic microorganisms are repre-sented in Figure 1.…”

Probiotics - the versatile functional food ingredients

“…Another fermented dairy product is kefir. But among these, the dominant food vehicles for probiotics are still yogurts and fermented milks, both of which provide a relatively low pH environment in which the probiotic bacteria must survive (Anandharaj et al 2014).…”

“…However, many studies have shown that probiotic strains are also found in nondairy fermented substrates which includes soy based products, cereals, legumes, cabbage, maize, pearl millet, sorghum, and so forth (Kechagia et al 2013;Anandharaj et al 2014). …”

“…Furthermore, L. rhamnosus GG was found successful in preventing the occurrence of atopic eczema in high risk Fig. 1 Overall benefits of probiotic bacteria on human health (Anandharaj et al 2014) infants (Isolauri et al 2000). Probiotics however have not been very successful in alleviating symptoms of asthma (Kechagia et al 2013).…”