Postbiotics: An overview of concepts, inactivation technologies, health effects, and driver trends

Postbiotics are a relatively new concept, and studies have demonstrated important health benefits after their administration. This way, postbiotics is an emerging topic in food science. This review describes the concepts of postbiotics, demonstrates the most common processes for microbial inactivation for postbiotic production, presents the main postbiotics health effects, and discusses the current trends. Furthermore, the most studied food products are reported. The most common processes used for microbial inactivation are thermal (pasteurization, sterilization, and ohmic heating) and non-thermal (pulsed electric fields, ultrasound, irradiation, and supercritical carbon dioxide) processes. The main health effects associated with postbiotic administration are obesity prevention and control of lipidic metabolism, improvements in hydration and skin health, immune system regulation, prevention or symptom relief of chronic diseases, and improvement in constipation and intestinal health. The most studied food products are infant formulas, cereal-based products, and beverages. We highlight opportunities for studies utilizing emerging technologies for microbial inactivation, optimizing the process parameters to preserve probiotic activity after inactivation, or increasing postbiotic production. Furthermore, it is important to study new cultures with or without probiotic qualifications and identify postbiotics’ conservation, processes, and stability requirements to support and facilitate industrial development. Finally, using postbiotics in food products and more clinical trials are needed to prove the technological and health effects. Nevertheless, the findings suggest that postbiotics can be applied to diet to promote health, prevent and treat diseases, and develop functional foods.