ABSTRACT
Nowadays, most consumers are aware of a strong relationship between diet and health. Although the primary role of diet is to provide nutrients, foods are no longer considered only in terms of taste and nutritional needs. The use of foods to improve health is an increasingly accepted idea. The World Health Organization (WHO) delineated that unhealthy diets such as those high in fat, salt and free sugar, and low in complex carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables, lead to increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (WHO 2003). Lipids have an important role in humans and abnormalities in lipid metabolism can cause serious disorders such as obesity, diabetes, etc. More recent fi ndings show that elevated fasting triglyceride levels are associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular diseases. The WHO has predicted that by 2030, cardiovascular diseases will remain the leading causes of death, affecting approximately 23.6 million people around the World (WHO 2009). In view of this, there is extensive interest in the dietary management of
1 Gaziantep Üniversitesi Gıda Mühendisliği Bölümü 27310 Gaziantep, Turkey. Emails: dkocak@gantep.edu.tr; fahret@gantep.edu.tr 2 Gaziantep Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Tıbbi Biyokimya ABD, 27310 Gaziantep, Turkey. Email: aerbagci@gantep.edu.tr * Corresponding author
triglyceride levels. Drug therapy is largely used for this purpose, but most people are affected by unwanted side effects of such treatments. Current dietary strategies for prevention of cardiovascular disorders include low-fat/ low-saturated fat diet (Taylor and Williams 1998). Although such diets are an effective therapy, they are diffi cult to maintain on a long-term and their effi cacy diminishes over time (Pereira and Gibson 2002). There is a growing interest in alternative agents which have preventative and therapeutic potential. Probiotic and prebiotic foods fall into this category. Probiotics are live microorganisms that promote health benefi ts upon consumption, while prebiotics are nondigestible food ingredients that selectively stimulate the growth of benefi cial microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract. Probiotics and/or prebiotics could be used as alternative supplements to exert health benefi ts. Past in vivo studies showed that the administration of probiotics and/or prebiotics are effective in improving lipid profi les, including the reduction of serum/plasma total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and triglycerides or increment of HDL-cholesterol. However, other past studies have also shown that probiotics and prebiotics had insignifi cant effects on lipid profi les (Ooi and Liong 2010). It is still unclear which mechanisms are used by probiotics or prebiotics to bring about improved lipid metabolism. Nowadays, combining probiotics and prebiotics into “synbiotics” is a new approach to further enhance their effects.
