Probiotics and immunology: separating the wheat from the chaff

Probiotics are live bacteria exhibiting health-promoting activities. Recent research has demonstrated that probiotics can prevent pathogen colonization of the gut and reduce the incidence or relieve the symptoms of various diseases caused by dysregulated immune responses. Probiotics seem to function by influencing both intestinal epithelial cells and immune cells of the gut, but the details of these effects are still being unraveled. Therefore, probiotics, through their effects on the host immune system, might ameliorate diseases triggered by disordered immune responses. Caveats remain and, because the beneficial effects of probiotics can vary between strains, the selection of the most suitable ones will be crucial for their use in the prevention or treatment of specific diseases.