| Abstract: In recent decades, functional foods with ingredients comprising probiotics, prebiotics and
postbiotics have been gaining a lot of attention from scientists. Probiotics and postbiotics are usually
applied in pharmaceutical formulations and/or commercial food-based products. These bioactive
agents can be associated with host eukaryotic cells and have a key role in maintaining and restoring
host health. The review describes the concept of postbiotics, their quality control and potential applications
in pharmaceutical formulations and commercial food-based products for health promotion, prevention
of disease and complementary treatment. Despite the effectiveness of probiotic products, researchers
have introduced the concept of postbiotic to optimize their beneficial effects as well as to
meet the needs of consumers to provide a safe product. The finding of recent studies suggests that
postbiotics might be appropriate alternative agents for live probiotic cells and can be applied in medical,
veterinary and food practice to prevent and to treat some diseases, promote animal health status
and develop functional foods. Presently scientific literature confirms that postbiotics, as potential alternative
agents, may have superiority in terms of safety relative to their parent live cells, and due to their
unique characteristics in terms of clinical, technological and economical aspects, can be applied as
promising tools in the drug and food industry for developing health benefits, and therapeutic aims. |