the 6th beneficial microbes conference 2017: pre- and probiotics for lifelong human and animal health

the 6th beneficial microbes conference, organised by bastiaanse communication, took place in amsterdam from 9–11 october 2017. participants were mainly from european countries, and the conference considered how beneficial microbes are advantageous to the health of humans and animals.

rising antibiotic resistance and the lack of promising new antibiotic candidates threatens clinical settings. as clinical trials can be prohibitively expensive and big pharma are not investing in the area, the focus has turned to beneficial microbes in the gut to boost immunity and increase host resilience to disease.

probiotics are beneficial bacteria and yeast, and are given a variety of different labels – ‘friendly’, ’good’ and ‘helpful’. they may be subject to sweeping health claims. this conference aimed to investigate the hype and challenged this area as a pseudoscience. 

we heard of ultra-low microbial gut diversity in critical illness, of the promising role of probiotics in re-establishing gut and overall health following long bouts of antibiotic use and in necrotising enterocolitis (nec) of pre-term infants. away from humans, examples included weaning piglets are benefiting from probiotics rather than antibiotics to prevent fatal escherichia coli infections, and researchers are working with chicken gut models (calimero) to consider health outcomes.

alongside probiotics, prebiotics are non-digestible food ingredients promoting growth and/or activity of probiotic bacteria. within these areas, we heard that we now eat 140g of fibre less per day than our ancestors. due to this lack of dietary fibre, mucus degraders abound which can cause host mucus degradation and allow pathogens to cross an eroded mucosal barrier. in several presentations, glycans and human milk oligosaccharides (hmos) cropped up as compounds shaping the microbiota and preventing dysbiosis. 

i left with a strong underlying message that pre- and probiotics could be an alternative pathway to antibiotic use within a health and disease context.

dr lisa crossman

director, consulting, sequenceanalysis.co.uk, norwich, uk
honorary lecturer, university of east anglia, norwich, uk