By Irina Spacova, ISAPP-SFA 2019 President and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Antwerp, Belgium Early career scientists play a vital and dynamic role in research, especially in environments supporting their enthusiasm and drive for innovation. ISAPP has long been promoting young researchers through its Students and Fellows Association (ISAPP-SFA), which is a student-led branch […]
By Mary Ellen Sanders, PhD, ISAPP Executive Science Officer On June 28, 60 Minutes aired a 13-minute segment about probiotics titled, “Do Probiotics Actually Do Anything?” Unfortunately the media segment did not provide listeners with a nuanced perspective. ‘Probiotics’ were treated as if they were one entity, ignoring the best approach to addressing the topic […]
By Kelly S. Swanson, PhD, The Kraft Heinz Company Endowed Professor in Human Nutrition, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA Pet dogs and cats are cherished companions. In developed countries, many households with pets treat them like family members. Similarly to humans, a high level of nutrition and veterinary care promotes health and longevity. As people […]
ISAPP’s series of six English-language videos are a useful resource for helping consumers answer important questions about probiotics, prebiotics, and fermented foods. In order to make these popular educational videos accessible to a wider global audience, ISAPP has now updated them with subtitles in multiple languages: Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. […]
By ISAPP Board of Directors June 15, 2020 The recent American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Clinical Practice Guidelines on the Role of Probiotics in the Management of Gastrointestinal Disorders provided the AGA’s assessment of evidence. Considering these AGA recommendations for probiotics to prevent necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and C. difficile infection, all hospital formularies should stock at […]
By Kristina Campbell, science and medical writer The word ‘synbiotic’ is found on the labels of many different products, from supplements to chocolate bars, and it has generally been understood to be a combination of a probiotic and a prebiotic. But what happens when scientists want to test whether these combination products really deliver any […]
By Mary Ellen Sanders, PhD, ISAPP Executive Science Officer ISAPP is pleased to announce that Profs. Kelly Swanson PhD, Daniel Tancredi PhD, and Gabriel Vinderola PhD have joined the ISAPP board of directors. The expertise of these three globally recognized academic experts complements that of the current board members, together comprising a leading global group […]
Did you miss the live webinar? Access the archived version here. From sourdough starter tips to kombucha flavor combinations – if you’ve checked a social media feed lately, you’ll know how many people are sharing an interest in fermented foods as they self-isolate during the pandemic. And with this rise in popularity comes a host […]
With an increasing number of patients becoming aware of the human microbiome and its role in health, primary care physicians are faced with questions about probiotics as a possible strategy for maintaining health. Patients may see conflicting messages in the news and on product labels – so how can they know which probiotic benefits are […]
By ISAPP board of directors With the global spread of COVID-19, the scientific community has experienced an unusual interruption. Across every field, many laboratories are temporarily shuttered and research programs of all sizes are on hiatus. Principal investigators around the world are doing their part to keep their students and local communities safe, and many […]
By ISAPP board of directors Summary: No probiotics or prebiotics have been shown to prevent or treat COVID-19 or inhibit the growth of SARSCoV-2. We recommend placebo-controlled trials be conducted, which have been undertaken by some research groups. If being used in clinical practice in advance of such evidence, we recommend a registry be organized to […]
By Mary Ellen Sanders PhD, executive science officer, ISAPP On behalf of the ISAPP board of directors, I am reaching out to the ISAPP community to say we hope you are doing well and taking all the necessary steps in your local communities to remain healthy. At present, the global ISAPP community is physically distant […]
By Mary Ellen Sanders PhD, executive science officer, ISAPP, and Daniel Merenstein MD, Department of Family Medicine, Georgetown University School of Medicine The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) recently published a short viewpoint that called into question the safety and efficacy of probiotics. After careful review, we concluded that some opinions expressed were […]
By Mary Ellen Sanders, PhD, and Sarah Lebeer, PhD The genus Lactobacillus was listed as the fifth most important category of living organism to have influenced the planet throughout its evolutionary history in a 2009 book, What on Earth Evolved?. From their central role in food fermentations around the globe to their ability to benefit […]
By Anna-Ursula Happel, president ISAPP-SFA and postdoctoral fellow at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town, South Africa Our professors keep telling us to write, write, write. Reports, papers, reviews, presentations. You can’t blame them as that’s what most of them had to do, and in a competitive environment academic output […]
Dr. Prof. Gabriel Vinderola, Investigador Principal CONICET, Instituto de Lactología Industrial (INLAIN, CONICET-UNL), Profesor Asociado, Cátedra de Microbiología, Facultad de Ingeniería Química, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina. El interés sobre las bacterias intestinales, los alimentos fermentados y los probióticos está en aumento en Argentina y la región. Nutricionistas e influencers, que en los últimos años […]
By Prof. Gabriel Vinderola PhD, Associate Professor of Microbiology at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering from the National University of Litoral and Principal Researcher from CONICET at Dairy Products Institute (CONICET-UNL), Santa Fe, Argentina Awareness of gut microbes, fermented foods and probiotics has been on the rise in Argentina. Nutritionists and influencers, who in recent […]
By James Heimbach, Ph.D., F.A.C.N., JHEIMBACH LLC, Port Royal, VA A number of weeks ago I wrote on the ISAPP blog about US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declining to file Generally Regarded As Safe (GRAS) notices that described the subject microorganism as a “probiotic” or “probiotic bacterium” (see The FDA’s view on the term […]
By Gregor Reid BSc (Hons), PhD, MBA, ARM CCM, Dr HS, FCAHS, FRSC It’s dawn and as per every day, I put on my mask. It’s not the type of mask you might think in these anxious times. It’s to prepare hay bags for our two horses. Hay, filled with the dust and mold particles […]
Prof. Glenn Gibson, Food Microbial Sciences Unit, Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences, The University of Reading, UK I usually think that psychics are pretty funny and are to be avoided, but what about this from Sylvia Browne published in 2008? “In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the […]
By Kristina Campbell, science and medical writer Even on the days when you don’t eat a large meal of Boston baked beans, the inside of your intestines is a gas-generating factory. This serves a valuable purpose for the body when everything is working as it should, with gases being produced and eliminated through a complex […]
By Daniel J. Merenstein, MD, Professor, Department of Family Medicine and Director of Research Programs, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington DC Here’s a scenario for a physician: A drug rep walks into your office. She has a new product she wants to talk to you about. You are super excited to talk to her as […]
By ISAPP board members, compiled by Kristina Campbell Scientific progress in the field of probiotics and prebiotics, as in any other field, often seems to occur one tiny step at a time. Yet over the course of several years, these tiny steps can add up to significant progress. Current members of the ISAPP board of […]
By James Heimbach, Ph.D., F.A.C.N., JHEIMBACH LLC, Port Royal, VA Over the past 20 years as a food and nutrition regulatory consultant, I have filed about 40 GRAS notices with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including 15 strains of probiotic bacteria and 5 prebiotics. This fall I submitted notices dealing with 4 […]
By Kristina Campbell, MSc, Science & Medical Writer Despite the huge variety of fermented foods that have originated in countries all over the world, there are relatively few published studies describing the microbiological similarities and differences between these very diverse foods and beverages. But in recent years, thanks to the availability of high throughput sequencing […]
