Prebiotics and probiotics in the modern medical area

Abstract

Today's global medical area are focused recently on the "prebiotics" and "probiotics". These new terms resemble "fermentable-fibre" and "Lactobacillus" respectively. In the light of historical perspective; fermentable fibers have during history of mankind been an important food ingredient. The food of our ancestors was often stored for weeks and months in the soil and when eaten, contribute large amounts of bacteria to the human digestive tract. It is estimated that our Paleolithic forefathers consumed billions of times more of microbes than we do today. As a consequence of this, did they also have a much more diversified and richer microbial flora. Paleolithic foods, as well as also today´s "primitive" foods eaten by various ethnic groups are based on raw plants and consequently contain large amounts of fermentable fibers. The present global epidemy of chronic diseases could strongly be associated with reduced intake of plants and also microorganisms. As a consequence; nowadays the terms of both "prebiotics" and "probiotics" seem-like to take place an important role in the chronic disease epidemiology.