Probiotics 101: What are Human Origin Strains?
by Admin
Posted on 23-01-2024 05:24 PM
Due to the increasing prevalence of life-threatening bacterial, fungal and viral infections and the ability of these human pathogens to develop resistance to current treatment strategies, there is a great need to find and develop new compunds to combat them. These molecules must have low toxicity, specific activity and high bioavailability. The most suitable compounds for this task are usually derived from natural sources (animal, plant or even microbial).
In this review article, the latest and most promising natural compounds used to combat bacteria, filamentous fungi and viruses are presented and evaluated. These include plant extracts, essential oils, small antimicrobial peptides of animal origin, bacteriocins and various groups of plant compounds (triterpenoids; alkaloids; phenols; flavonoids) with antimicrobial and antiviral activity.
You may hear lots of companies talk about ‘human origin’ strains of bacteria in their products. Before we start defining what a human origin strain is, let’s set the record straight on one critical issue. Although our bacteria are human origin, we do not collect them from humans, nor do they contain any human by-products. ‘human origin’ refers instead to the ability of bacteria to grow within our body. With trillions of types of bacteria on the planet, these are the types of bacteria that have co-evolved along with us. We give them a place to live; they provide us with health benefits. https://www.specialistsupplements.com/product-category/probiotic-bacteria/
Probiotics are having a moment. But as more and more people discover the health benefits these good-for-you bacteria provide, many are beginning to wonder about the source of the bacteria in their probiotic supplement. While some probiotic strains are sourced from plants or dairy, the most common bacteria in many supplements are “human strain” probiotics. So what’s the story behind human strain probiotics? let’s find out. What exactly are human strain probiotics? despite the name, human strain probiotics don’t actually contain human byproducts or ingredients. They are simply strains of beneficial bacteria that have been found to live in the human digestive tract.
What’s a “Human Origin” strain?
A multi-strain live culture combination (4 billion strength)
a combination of 8 different live cultures, providing 4 billion viable organisms per capsule:
lactobacillus rhamnosus, lactobacillus casei, lactobacillus acidophilus, bifidobacterium infantis, streptococcus thermophilus, bifidobacterium breve, bifidobacterium longum and lactobacillus bulgaricus. With no added dairy, sugars, artificial flavourings or colourings, this vegan food supplement provides an ideal alternative to sugary yoghurts and yoghurt drinks containing live cultures.
Contains human compatible bacteria strains which are bile and acid tolerant with high adherence ability. No need to refrigerate.
The human use of fungi for food preparation or preservation and other purposes is extensive and has a long history. Mushroom farming and mushroom gathering are large industries in many countries. The study of the historical uses and sociological impact of fungi is known as ethnomycology. Because of the capacity of this group to produce an enormous range of natural products with antimicrobial or other biological activities, many species have long been used or are being developed for industrial production of antibiotics , vitamins, and anti-cancer and cholesterol-lowering drugs. Methods have been developed for genetic engineering of fungi, enabling metabolic engineering of fungal species.
According to the world health organization, antimicrobial resistance is a natural phenomenon that occurs when microorganisms no longer respond to antibiotics to which they were previously susceptible and that were previously active in treating infections caused by these microorganisms [ 10 , 12 ]. As a result of drug resistance, infections become harder or impossible to treat, increasing the risk of the spread of serious infectious diseases and death [ 13 , 14 ]. The spread of amr as a process caused by the overuse of antibiotics is an unfulfilling definition since it has long been known that amr occurs naturally over time through distinct mechanisms [ 15 , 16 ].
The Story Behind Human Strain Probiotics
Although the results of strainge on the fang et al. [ 25 ] dataset highlighted its ability to resolve strains present at low abundance, the overall e. Coli relative abundances in these samples were significantly higher (median 7. 9%; range 0. 05–27%) than those typically seen in the human gut. Thus, we also tested strainge on 12 stool metagenomes having more typical e. Coli relative abundances (median 0. 55%; range 0. 006–17. 4%), which originated from a single individual with a history of recurrent urinary tract infection (ruti) over the span of a year. Given that the gut is a known important reservoir for uti-causing e.
The human gastrointestinal tract is colonized by many microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, viruses, fungi, and protozoa. The activity and composition of these microorganisms (collectively known as the gut microbiota, microbiome, or intestinal microflora) can affect human health and disease. Probiotics usually exert their effects in the gastrointestinal tract, where they may influence the intestinal microbiota. Probiotics can transiently colonize the human gut mucosa in highly individualized patterns, depending on the baseline microbiota, probiotic strain, and gastrointestinal tract region [ 4 ]. Probiotics also exert health effects by nonspecific, species-specific, and strain-specific mechanisms [ 1 ]. The nonspecific mechanisms vary widely among strains, species, or even genera of commonly used probiotic supplements.
Discovery of antibiotics and their development for treatment of infectious diseases is the biggest success story in the history of chemotherapy. However, widespread and indiscriminate use of antibiotics in the last 70 years has led to selection of resistant strains to every antibiotic that has been introduced so far. With the very first antimicrobial agents, such as sulfonamides, resistance was observed soon after in the late 1930s ( davies and davies, 2010 ). Even before the widespread use of penicillin in clinical practice, penicillinase was discovered in 1940 in staphylococcus aureus and streptococcus pneumoniae providing evidence that the resistance mechanisms against penicillin were already present in the natural environment ( davies and davies, 2010 ; ogawara, 2016b ).
These potentially concerning findings raised the possibility that probiotic-associated post-antibiotic resistome expansion constitutes a unique observation stemming from our experimental design or the supplemented probiotic product we utilized. To generalize our findings, we first asked whether they could be replicated in an animal model. We previously reported that similar to humans, probiotic supplementation to antibiotic-treated mice delays microbiome recovery compared to spontaneous recovery or fmt 27. Resistome profiling of caecal and colonic luminal samples from these mice ( methods and fig. 5a ) indicated that the resistome of antibiotic-naïve mice was indistinguishable from mice receiving post-antibiotics fmt or recovering spontaneously, although it was significantly different than that of mice receiving antibiotics and probiotics (fig.