The Concepts and Applications of Postbiotics for the Development of Health Functional Food Product

Probiotics have been shown to health benefit through their role in improving the health of our body. They are commonly incorporated into a variety of functional foods or drug formulations. However, technical limitations such as viability controls have hindered their full potential applications for functional foods. Therefore, non-viable bacteria and/or derived biomolecules, namely postbiotics can be used for overcoming this limitation. The postbiotics are the inanimate microbial cells of probiotics or cell components such as peptidoglycans, teichoic acids, and exopolysaccharides. The various beneficial properties of postbiotics include anti-inflammatory, gut barrier property, antimicrobial, immunomodulatory, antihypertensive, hypocholesterolemia and antioxidant. These benefits suggest the potentiality of postbiotics to enhance the host health by ameliorating or preventing the disease conditions. However, there is still a high need for human/clinical trials focusing on the validation of health claims of these bioactive molecules or cells. Here, the concepts and various applications of postbiotics for the development of functional foods or drugs with their potential health benefits are summarized and discussed.