Abstract

Purpose: Health consciousness, increased interest in healthy foods, and rising medical costs have all contributed to the strong global trend of consumers favouring functional and nutritious foods. Prophylactic properties of traditional fermented dairy products can be enhanced with dietary interventions such as probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics and postbiotics. Fermented dairy products are considered as a suitable matrix in comparison to non-fermented dairy products for probiotic carrier owing to its healthy image and protection of probiotic viability due to the milk protein. Retention of normal gut flora is of prime importance for good health as any disturbance in gut composition results in dysbiosis. The purpose of this paper was to review the functional properties of probiotics to project probiotic fermented dairy foods as a new dimension in the functional food market in the current era of self-care and complementary medicine.

Keywords

probiotics, gut flora, health benefits, functional foods, fermented dairy foods