Probiotics Task Force

Background

Probiotics are of growing interest within the scientific community, for consumers and for the food industry. They potentially provide functional health benefits. The interaction between the gut and intestinal flora and between resident and transient flora defines a new arena in physiology, an understanding of which would shed light on the ‘cross talk’ between humans and microbes. 

Health claims on specific probiotics are accepted in the USA, in Japan, and in some European countries. However, there is a need for comprehensive and harmonised guidelines on the assessment of the characteristics of probiotic as foods, biotherapeutic agents and their functional safety.

Objectives

The mission of the task force is to investigate how the physiological efficacy of probiotics can be assessed and to develop appropriate guidelines and recommendations to move the research field of probiotics forward.

In addition, there is an increasing need to define risks or side effects that probiotics may cause under special conditions. As a result, the task force will develop a decision tree approach for assessing the functional safety of probiotics including both uses as food and as bio-therapeutic agents.

Impact

The work of the task force is contributing to the scientific understanding and underpinning of health claims regulations. It will be of relevance to the European Commission’s research programme.

The evaluation of the range of activities will allow for fair comparison between different strains of probiotics and various products. Regulators will benefit from a guideline on the evaluation of the probiotics-related claims. Ultimately, the scientific substantiation of claimed benefits should increase the confidence of consumers in claims.

A working relationship has been established with the IDF/ISO Joint Action Team on Probiotics. The IDF/ISO JAT is represented as observer at the TF meetings in order to ensure coordination of work and communication between the two organisations.

Activities

Expert Group on Functional Safety of Probiotics

The task force commissioned an expert group to focus on the functional safety of probiotics. This activity focuses on the safety of new strains or combination of strains proposed for probiotics according to process conditions, route of administration, target population and therapeutic use.

The objectives of this activity are to:

• Provide an updated ‘state of the art’ on the mechanisms of risks generated by the endogenous and transient microbiome and on the patho-physiology of the gut flora;
• Disseminate scientific information on the patho-physiology of the gut flora;
• Provide a scientific basis for an adapted regulation on the assessment of combination of strains for human use in food and drugs.

The outcome of this activity will be published as an ILSI Europe Report.

Expert Group on Guidance for Assessing Probiotics Beneficial Effects

This expert group is finalising a ‘good practice’ document that evaluates the evidence for the effect of probiotics in the prevention and treatment of the following conditions:

• Inflammatory Bowel disease/Irritable bowel syndrome (IBD/IBS)
• Allergy
• Metabolism
• Risk of infection

The aim is to define guidelines for evaluating the efficacy for the next generation of human trials.

This work builds on the Gut Health and Immunity Expert Group of PASSCLAIM, the ILSI Europe Nutrition and Immunity in Man Task Force and existing FAO/WHO guidelines.

The manuscript prepared by the expert group was critically reviewed at an ILSI Europe workshop held in association with the IDF, in Montreux, Switzerland, in May 2008. It will be submitted for publication in the Journal of Nutrition in April 2009.

To ensure a wide dissemination, the findings will be presented at the Functional Food Conference in Ireland, in November 2009.

Question & Answer Document on Probiotics: Facts and Fiction

The task force is finalising a Question and Answer document on probiotics that will be posted on ILSI Europe’s website. With the probiotic field moving so quickly, this tool will provide a forum to enable quick responses to emerging issues.

The resulting document will be critically reviewed at an ILSI Europe mini-workshop to be held in Brussels at the end of the year, in order to identify current gaps and issues related to probiotics that need further research.

Task Force Collaborators

Members 2009

* Observer

Expert Group on Probiotics

For more information, please contact info@ilsieurope.be.