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 […]
By 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 […]
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 […]
By Mariya Petrova, PhD, Microbiome insights and Probiotics Consultancy, Karlovo, Bulgaria November and December mark a wonderful time of the year when the cold weather makes you want to stay at home and enjoy homemade foods and drinks. However, the heavy food during the holidays makes all of us think about healthier alternatives and how […]
By Kristina Campbell, M.Sc., science & medical writer In a 2009 book called What on Earth Evolved?, British author Christopher Lloyd takes on the task of ranking the top 100 species that have influenced the planet throughout its evolutionary history. What comes in at number 5, just slightly more influential than Homo sapiens? Lactobacilli, […]
By Mary Ellen Sanders, PhD, Executive Science Officer, ISAPP It seems over the last couple of years, open season on “probiotics” has been declared. Responding in a scientifically accurate fashion to misleading coverage, whether it is in reputable scientific journals or in the lay media, takes time and care. I want to be clear: well-conducted […]
By Prof. Glenn Gibson, University of Reading, UK An All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) was inaugurated in February 2019 in the UK. Its purpose is: “to highlight the role of the gut microbiome in physical and mental health and its capacity to prevent many disorders and improve or slow others; to inform debate about how […]
By Mary Ellen Sanders PhD, Executive Science Officer, ISAPP In 2017, the International Probiotics Association (IPA) proposed that Codex Alimentarius consider the topic of global harmonization of probiotics, and Argentina offered to propose an approach. The final proposal developed by Argentina is here. This set into motion activities among many stakeholders that led to a final […]
By Dan Merenstein MD, Professor of Family Medicine, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington DC, USA; Eamonn Quigley MD, Professor of Medicine, Houston Methodist Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical College, Texas USA; Gregory Gloor PhD, Professor of Biochemistry, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, The University of Western Ontario, Canada; Hania Szajewska MD, Professor of Paediatrics, […]
Past President and founding board member Prof. Gregor Reid is stepping down from the ISAPP Board in Banff in June 2020, as he retires from Western University and his Endowed Chair position at Lawson Health Research Institute the following month. In this blog post, he shares thoughts on his career and the opportunities for his […]
By Mary Ellen Sanders PhD, Executive Science Officer, ISAPP, and Gregory B. Gloor PhD, Department of Biochemistry, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, The University of Western Ontario, London A recent Wall Street Journal essay posits that probiotics are harmful, but does so by misrepresenting probiotic and microbiome science in some important ways. The […]
By Mary Ellen Sanders PhD, Executive Science Officer, ISAPP A team of researchers has submitted their recommendations for new classification for the heterogeneous group of species currently considered to belong to the genus Lactobacillus. The paper is under review by the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, the premier journal for bacterial taxonomy. Three research […]
By Eamonn MM Quigley MD FRCP FACP MACG FRCPI, Lynda K and David M Underwood, Center for Digestive Disorders, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas, USA Over recent years, countless publications have documented the status of the microbiota of the gastrointestinal tract by examining fecal samples. While this approach does […]
By Prof. Maria Marco, PhD, Department of Food Science & Technology, University of California, Davis It is increasingly appreciated by consumers, physicians, and researchers alike that the human digestive tract is colonized by trillions of bacteria and many of those bacterial colonists have important roles in promoting human health. Because of this association between the […]
