Synbiotics bring together two distinct ingredients.
A synbiotic combines both a live microbe (often a probiotic) and a source of food for microbes (often a prebiotic) which is utilized by either the co-administered live microbe or by the beneficial microbes that inhabit your body. In either case, these substances, when combined, must confer a health benefit. The prefix ‘syn’ in synbiotics is important because it means ‘together’. A key feature of every synbiotic is that it brings together two distinct ingredients.
Specific synbiotics are shown to improve gastrointestinal health and immunity by preventing surgical infections in adults, preventing sepsis in infants, and by improving irritable bowel syndrome or eradicating H. pylori infection in both adults and children.
