Probiotics as Functional Foods: Potential Effects on Human Health and its Impact on Neurological Diseases

Probiotics are live microbial food supplements that provide several health benefits, as they help in maintaining excellent stability and composition of the intestinal microbiota and boost the resistance against infection by pathogens. Probiotics can be considered as potential functional foods, as they offer health benefits much more than the traditional nutritional foods. The requirement for probiotic functional foods is rapidly and progressively on the rise because of increased awareness of the public regarding the impact of food on health. Probiotics are now emerging as a promising key category of food supplement around the globe. There are now plenty of evidences backed up with high-quality, scientific clinical data to advocate that probiotic involvement could indeed be successful in the different types of diarrheal diseases, the modulation of immune function, the prevention of colon cancer, and other chronic gastrointestinal inflammatory disorders. The potential effectiveness of probiotics in treating or preventing neurological diseases is becoming a theme of great interest. In recent years, substantial interest has been dedicated to discover the functions and therapeutic effects of probiotics in a wide range of neurological conditions. This review examines different major functions of probiotics such as probiotics as functional food, probiotics in the improvement of human health, and probiotics to treat and prevent neurobehavioral diseases.