婴幼儿用益生菌的研究现状及面临的挑战

益生菌是活的微生物,当摄入足够数量时,对宿主起有益健康的作用。研究发现母乳中含有活的微生物,使婴幼儿用益生菌被广泛关注。目前,国际上没有对"婴幼儿用益生菌"明确统一的定义及共识。通过阐述婴幼儿用益生菌的种类、常用菌株、安全性、临床研究的现状,指出研究最多的是乳酸杆菌属(Lactobacillus)和双歧杆菌属(Bifidobacterium),诸多报道显示其安全性良好,但是大多益生作用研究来自动物实验,成熟的、具有明确保健功能的益生菌菌株较少,尤其缺乏充分的临床研究。婴幼儿益生菌在研究和产业方面面临3方面挑战:现代肠道优势菌群新发现与传统益生菌菌株的矛盾,健康功能及作用缺乏像药物一样更深层面的精准机制解析,以及婴幼儿益生菌的法规与新菌株临床试验研究的矛盾。尽管面临诸多问题,但是,针对婴幼儿,特别是中国婴幼儿,特有的胃肠功能、免疫系统等尚未发育健全,这一独特的生理特点,开发婴幼儿用益生菌将具有重要前景。

Research Status and Challenges of Probiotics for Infants

Probiotics are living microorganisms, and when consumed in sufficient quantities, they are beneficial to the host. Studies have found that breast milk contains living microorganisms, so probiotics for infants and young children are widely concerned. At present, there is no world widely clear and unified definition and consensus on "probiotics for infants and young children". This paper described the types, common strains, safety and clinical research status of probiotics for infants and young children, and pointed out that the most studies focused on Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. Many reports showed that the safety of probiotics was good, but most function researches were from animal experiments, and there were few probiotics strains with mature and clear health function, especially lacking of sufficient clinical research.There were three challenges in the research and industry of infant probiotics: the contradiction between the new discovery of modern intestinal dominant flora and traditional probiotic strains, the lack of accurate mechanism analysis of health function in a deeper level like drugs, and the contradiction between the regulations of infant probiotics and clinical trial research of new strains. Although there were many problems,the incomplete gastrointestinal function and immune system of infants determined the bright prospect of probiotics development especially in China.