background oral administration of pro- and prebiotics has recently been considered as an effective way for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (nafld) recovery. objectives the current study aimed at evaluating the effect of supplementation with probiotics and/or prebiotics on liver function tests in patients with nafld. methods in this double blind, placebo-control clinical trial, 75 subjects with...

The human intestine hosts a complex bacterial community that plays a major role in nutrition and in maintaining human health. A functional metagenomic approach was used to explore the prebiotic breakdown potential of human gut bacteria, including non-cultivated ones. Two metagenomic libraries, constructed from ileum mucosa and fecal microbiota, were screened for hydrolytic activities on the pre...

As of today, the most credible scientific paradigm pertaining to the origin of life on Earth is undoubtedly the RNA World scenario. It is built on the assumption that catalytically active replicators (most probably RNA-like macromolecules) may have been responsible for booting up life almost four billion years ago. The many different incarnations of nucleotide sequence (string) replicator model...

Prebiotic oligosaccharides have the ability to generate important changes in the gut microbiota composition that may confer health benefits to the host. Reducing the impurities in prebiotic mixtures could expand their applications in food industries and improve their selectivity and prebiotic effect on the potential beneficial bacteria such as bifidobacteria and lactobacilli. This study aimed t...

BACKGROUND Vernonia amygdalina, commonly called bitter-leaf, is widely consumed in many parts of Africa, and Nigeria, in particular. The leaf extract has been reported to have antimicrobial, anti-plasmodial, anti-helminthic, as well as prebiotic properties, but its immuno-modulatory effects have not been well-studied, neither have the prebiotics been identified. This study evaluated the immuno-...

One of the most important open issues in astrochemistry and astrobiology is the detection in space of complex organic molecules, in particular those having a strong prebiotic role (i.e., related to the formation of biomolecule building blocks), and the identification of the chemical routes for their production. By means of selected examples, the role of rotational spectroscopy and quantum chemi...

Packaged Facts estimates the global retail market for probiotic and prebiotic foods and beverages at approximately $15.4 billion in 2008; that total represents a 12.5% increase over estimated 2007 sales of $13.7 billion. In 2008, the growth rate for the probiotic and prebiotic food and beverage market ranged from 5% to more than 30%, depending on the region and product type. Packaged Facts anal...

The search for prebiotic, nucleic acid precursors is, at its best, a speculative undertaking. Given the complex structure of RNA, it is not very likely that RNA was the first information system in the universe and thus finding possible precursor/s i.e. pre-RNA remains an open challenge. We, in this paper, have tried to construct nucleic acid polymers with a simple acyclic, achiral backbone. Suc...

Prebiotic carbohydrates, in addition to their ability to influence the colonic microbiota, are also able to interfere with how pathogenic bacteria attach to the epithelial cells that line the intestinal tract. For Salmonella, Escherichia coli, and other enteric pathogens, adherence is a receptor-mediated event between bacterial adhesins and their complementary ligands located on the mucosal sur...

BACKGROUND Yogurt and prebiotic consumption has been linked to better health. However, to our knowledge, no longitudinal study has assessed the association of yogurt and prebiotic consumption with depression risk. OBJECTIVE We longitudinally evaluated the association of yogurt and prebiotic consumption with depression risk in a Mediterranean cohort. METHODS The SUN (Seguimiento Universidad ...