The role of probiotics as gastrointestinal infections treatment and prophylaxis: A review

Objective: Probiotics are products that contain microorganisms capable of supporting symbiotic relations with native microbiota of many environments. They are widely used and studied due to their capacity to improve biological systems’ overall health. Many hypothesis exist surrounding the mechanisms by which every microbe labelled as probiotic is the cause by which system health is enhanced by its presence. The aim of this review was to compile article’s data concerning the role of different combinations of probiotics used to treat and prevent gastrointestinal conditions, such as antibiotic-associated diarrhea, pseudomembranous colitis, Helicobacter pylori infections, oral, pharyngeal and Salmonella infections. In general, other than presenting excellent safety records, several probiotic combinations registered in clinical trials could prove themselves capable of significantly preventing those infections and some proved to be capable to also treat them once established. The main challenge among the infections studies seems to be oral cavity infections, probably due to microbiota complexity. Nevertheless, probiotics seem to have good prospect for playing a major preventive and protective role in gastrointestinal infections with further investigation to gather sufficient evidence to base treatment protocols.