User:WeepingBritney/Probiotic prof review

Quality as Teaching Aide

Appropriate level? I think the level of material is right on for undergraduates.

Recommended for undergraduate students? I however would not recommend this material to my class as there are a number of inaccurate statements in the article and several important definitions are missing.

Quality as Summary of Topic

Are there any glaring errors?

Most notably the scientifically accepted definition of a probiotic is not present (see www.isapp.net). The claim that alteration of the intestinal flora (see below why this definition shouldn't be used) as the mechanism of action is only partially correct - many other possible mechanisms have been proposed. In fact the last sentence of that paragraph indicates one of the other possibilities that wouldn't fit with the first sentence.

Are terms well defined?

The use of the term flora is widely misused - flora and fauna are used to refer to plants and animals in an ecological sense. So unless we have plants in our intestines the more appropriate term would be microbiota. Similarly, a prebiotic should be defined - not clear from the presentation. I have no idea what temporary colonies are and this is likely an incorrect term for temporary colonization of the gut. I also have not heard of the term ecoorgan - although many people now consider the intestinal contents (microbiota) another organ.

How precise/quantitative is the article?

As for the health benefits - one of the most supported benefits is antibiotic associated diarrhea - should be listed first. In all cases the trials are pretty mixed - some positive and some negative results. I'm not as familiar with some of the trials for the diseases listed so I can't comment on all of the material here. One other note - products that contain probiotic bacteria are not necessarily probiotic foods. It must be proven that a beneficial effect is still observed when the bacterium is placed into the food. Common misconception I didn't find the research topic area to be very useful.

Extra comment

This is a pretty difficult topic as the research behind the phenomenon is undeveloped. Unfortunately there are a lot of reviews on the subject and many of them simply state people's opinions rather than facts. Whoever wrote this probably based a lot of the article on a few of these reviews. If I were to develop this page into a teaching tool I would be more careful is stating definitions and not making factual statements where there is little evidence to support them. Again - probiotics is pretty difficult though with more opinions than facts in the research literature.