摘要：Consumer demands on functional food products have been increased for the last 20 years. As a result of this trend, rapid growth in the probiotic food products market was observed. However, the limited shelf-life of probiotic food products is a limiting factor in improving this market and meeting consumer demands. At this point, postbiotics have emerged as a novel concept to exceed these kinds of limits as well as their health potentials. Briefly, postbiotics are bioactive products produced by microorganisms, i.e. fermentation metabolites. They may contain microbial metabolites, microbial cells, and their components. They may obtain from various probiotics or their inactive forms. In recent years increasingly, various investigations have been carried out to understand their nature and potential health benefits. This study aims to review recent studies on postbiotics related to their nature and potential health benefits.
关键词：Postbiotics; functional food; prebiotics; probiotics; health
