Safety of probiotic bacteria

Abstract

Probiotic bacteria, by definition, are living microbial food components or inactivated microbes or parts of microbes that have a beneficial effect on human health (Isolauri et al., 2002; Salminen et al., 1998). The probiotic definition requires that the efficacy and safety of probiotics be verified, and thus the assessment of probiotic safety is an important part of their characterization for human use.