[Probiotics as functional food products: manufacture and approaches to evaluating of the effectiveness].

This review concerns the issues of foodfortifications and the creation of functional foods (FF) and food supplements based on probiotics and covers an issue of approaches to the regulation of probiotic food products in various countries. The status of functional foods, optimizing GIT functions, as a separate category of FF is emphasized. Considering the strain-specificity effect of probiotics, the minimum criteria used for probiotics in food products are: 1) the need to identify a probiotics at genus, species, and strain levels, using the high-resolution techniques, 2) the viability and the presence of a sufficient amount of the probiotic in product at the end of shelf life, 3) the proof of functional characteristics inherent to probiotic strains, in the controlled experiments. The recommended by FA O/WHO three-stage evaluation procedure offunctional efficiency of FF includes: Phase I--safety assessment in in vitro and in vivo experiments, Phase II--Evaluation in the Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled trial (DBRPC) and Phase III--Post-approval monitoring. It is noted that along with the ability to obtain statistically significant results of the evaluation, there are practical difficulties of conducting DBRPC (duration, costs, difficulties in selection of target biomarkers and populations). The promising approach for assessing the functional efficacy of FF is the concept of nutrigenomics. It examines the link between the human diet and the characteristics of his genome to determine the influence of food on the expression of genes and, ultimately, to human health. Nutrigenomic approaches are promising to assess the impact of probiotics in healthy people. The focusing on the nutrigenomic response of intestinal microbial community and its individual populations (in this regard the lactobacilli can be very informative) was proposed.

[Study of microbial contamination of processed fresh vegetables and lettuce].

Investigations of microbial contamination and species composition of the Enterobacteriaceae family in fresh vegetables and lettuce has been conducted. The objects of study were new types of fresh ready-to-eat vegetable foods - salads, sliced vegetables and mixtures thereof, sampled at the main stages of production, including washing, antimicrobial treatment with sodium hypochlorite, and packaging in the film under vacuum. Quantitative analysis of Enterobacteriaceae levels in fresh and packaged vegetables and salads showed that their part in the total amount of microbial contaminants is large enough. Average Enterobacteriaceae content ranged from 2,14 to 3,34 lg cfu/g, reaching in some samples values 4,38-4,74 lg, comparable with the levels of total bacteria. Considerable species diversity of microflora contaminating ready-to-eat vegetable products has been found. Bacteria of the genera Enterobactel; Pantoea, Citrobacter, Serratia, Pseudomonas, Kluyvera, Klebsiella, Escherichia, Rahnella, Acinetobacter were found in the salads and sliced vegetables. In the tested samples most frequently detected Enterobacter spp. - 37% of identified strains and Pantoea spp - 25% of strains. The data on the composition and levels of microbial contaminants in vegetable and salad products highlight not only the need to monitor coliform bacteria - traditional indicators of faecal contamination of raw materials, but also the need to introduce criteria for the amount of Enterobacteriaceae.

[Colon lactoflora of rats with alimentary polyhypovitaminosis and modified fat component of diet].

The examination was carried out on male Wistar rats with an initial weight 97-121 g. Influence of vitamin provision and composition of fat component in semisynthetic diet on the condition of lactoflora population of intestine were studied. The deficiency of vitamins was caused by fivefold decrease of amount of vitamin mixture added to the feed and by elimination of vitamin E from this mixture. The modification of fat component was made by substitution of sunflower oil for linseed oil in equal amount (the ratio of vegetable oil and animal fat (lard) was 1:1). Duration of the first phase of the experiment was 28 days. Vitamin deficiency in rats, receiving feed with sunflower oil, was accompanied by significant decrease of vitamins A, E, B1 and B2 in the liver, but did not affect the quantity of lactobacilli in caecum content of rats. Enrichment of the diet deficient in vitamins with polyunsaturated omega 3 fatty acids was associated with a statistically significant increase in number of lactobacilli in the intestine compared with the control group (9.78+/-0.08 opposite 8.82+/-0.33 Ig CFU/g, p=0.018) and group of rats with vitamin deficiency (9.03+/-0.18 Ig CFU/g p = 0.006). On the second stage, replenishment of vitamin deficiency was carried out in the next 14 days by increasing the amount of vitamin mixture to 70 and 200% of vitamin content from a diet in control group. The replenishment has not affected the number of caecum lactobacilli irrespectively of the dose of vitamins and fatty component.