ABSTRACT
The concept of probiotics was rst postulated in 1908 by the Russian scientist and Nobel Prize winner Elie Metchnikoff who suggested that the long life of Bulgarian peasants resulted from their consumption of fermented milk products (Mercenier et al. 2002; Sonal et al. 2008; Tannock 2003). Metchnikoff thought that when the fermented milk products were consumed, the fermenting Lactobacillus positively inuenced the microora of the gut, decreasing toxic microbial activities there (Chuayana et al. 2003; Mercenier et al. 2002; Ouwehand et al. 2011).
