The number of probiotic products on Slovenian and global market is increasing every year. Research on the quality and adequacy of probiotic food supplements often shows many discrepancies between the number and identity of probiotic bacteria present in the product and those claimed on the label. Often, there have also been health claims observed, which are not allowed on probiotic food supplements. The purpose of this study was to analyze some of the probiotic products avaliable in pharmacies and specialised stores on the Slovenian market. We examined 19 products and used conventional plate counting and molecular methods in order to verify if the number of bacteria corresponds to the number on the label and if declared species are present in the product. We have also checked whether the declarations on the products were appropriate. Names of bacterial species were labeled on all products, however many of them lacked the designation of the bacterial strain. Most of the products had only the total number of bacteria listed but not also the number of each species. Only nine out of nineteen products contained sufficient total number of probiotic bacteria and only eight products contained all of the claimed bacterial species. We used PCR method to detect individual bacterial species. Conventional methods due to the lack of selective growth media often do not allow differentiation between related bacterial speices but are more usefull for the enumeration of total probiotic bacteria. Our hypothesis that there are probiotic products on Slovenian market which doesn´t meet criteria of quality and adequacy, was confirmed.
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