In vitro study on the influence of select Asian food supplements on Probiotic cultures

Probiotics, due to their beneficial gut effects, are widely sold in combination with a variety of food products such as infant feeds and health beverages. An in-vitro study was carried out to test three commonly used Asian food supplements - brown rice (BR), white rice (WR), American ginseng (AG) and casein hydrolysate (CH) for their influence on the growth on three probiotic bacteria Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. The viable cell counts of the probiotics grown in the presence of 1.5% concentrations of the food supplements were plotted against time for 20 hours and were compared with that of a known prebiotic Inulin (PI) and a growth control (GC). No significant variation in growth data was observed on L.acidophilus when grown in the presence of BR, WR, G and CH. An inhibitory effect on S.thermophilus could be observed only with BR and PI. Supplement AG had an inhibitory effect on L.bulgaricus, whereas, PI, CH and BR improved its growth performance. This study reflects the need to study the survival rate of probiotic strains in the presence of combination ingredients in health food, as some of them might reduce or help to enhance the probiotic potential of the final marketed product.