The Concepts of Functional Component Beyond Probiotics: Postbiotics and Paraprobiotics

Abstract

A great number of beneficial and harmful microorganisms colonize the human gastrointestinal ecosystem. Of these, beneficial gut bacteria have numerous and significant functions. The use of probiotics, paraprobiotics, and postbiotics to alter the gut microbiota has attracted recent attention as an imbalance in the gut microbiota can lead to the development of various diseases (such as type 1 diabetes, cancer, and others). These concepts are generally confused with each other. The paraprobiotic concept includes the use of killed microbial cells, while postbiotics refer to metabolic products of live microbial cells. In this review, it was aimed to give information on probiotics, paraprobiotics, and postbiotics approaches. In this context, this review provides knowledge about the microorganism and metabolites found in these groups, their action mechanism, clinical characteristics, and potential therapeutic applications.