Abstract
Most medicines and supplements which include probiotics have both expected clinical outcomes and unwanted side effects, which plays a major role when considering them as a mode of treatment. This review is an update about the advantages and disadvantages associated with the use of probiotics as part of a safe therapeutic armamentarium in health and other diseases. The advantages of probiotics run across multiple tissue systems in the body and a has a wide age spectrum. Probiotics also promote cardiovascular health, accelerate recovery from the condition of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea, decrease the effect of necrotizing enterocolitis with reduced inflammation, and accelerate the healing of the wound. Probiotics also contribute in treating chronic diseases for patients with type 2 diabetes as well as patients with HIV/AIDS. Moreover, probiotics play an important role in the treatment and/or prevention of cancers, especially those of the colon and bladder. On the other hand, probiotics also mimic serious threats to immunocompromised, genetically predisposed bodies, children, and newborns. Using probiotics may lead to bacteremia, fungemia, or septicemia when consumed more. Also, probiotics are found as a causative agent for pneumonia and abdominal abscesses, increase platelet aggregation, and promote antibiotic resistance among others. A huge number of microorganisms inhabit the human gut and consequently cause a compound network of the interactions of those organisms with each other and within the host cells, which stresses the requirement of extra caution in the use of probiotics as treatment therapy.
Keywords
Probiotics, Prebiotics, Carcinoma, Bacteremia, Lactobacillus, Pathogens