The DOI matches its Crossref record; 5 of the 5 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Prebiotics: why definitions matter
Open accessAbstract
The prebiotic concept was introduced twenty years ago, and despite several revisions to the original definition, the scientific community has continued to debate what it means to be a prebiotic. How prebiotics are defined is important not only for the scientific community, but also for regulatory agencies, the food industry, consumers and healthcare professionals. Recent developments in community-wide sequencing and glycomics have revealed that more complex interactions occur between putative prebiotic substrates and the gut microbiota than previously considered. A consensus among scientists on the most appropriate definition of a prebiotic is necessary to enable continued use of the term.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Ramirez-Farias, C., Slezak, K., Fuller, Z., Duncan, A., Holtrop, G., & Louis, P. (2008) · British Journal of Nutrition · doi:10.1017/s0007114508019880 · Cited by 822
Martínez, I., Kim, J., Duffy, P. R., Schlegel, V. L., & Walter, J. (2010) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0015046 · Cited by 645
Martens, E. C., Kelly, A. G., Tauzin, A. S., & Brumer, H. (2014) · Journal of Molecular Biology · doi:10.1016/j.jmb.2014.06.022 · Cited by 235
Self-citationManipulation of the Microbiota for Treatment of IBS and IBD—Challenges and Controversies
Shanahan, F., & Quigley, E. M. M. (2014) · Gastroenterology · doi:10.1053/j.gastro.2014.01.050 · Cited by 172 · cited 1×
“The necessity for open discussion about this topic is reflected in that the very basis for defining prebiotics has recently been challenged [45,46].”
BackgroundKong, L. C., Holmes, B. A., Cotillard, A., Habi-Rachedi, F., Brazeilles, R., Gougis, S., Gausserès, N., Cani, P. D., Fellahi, S., Bastard, J.-P., et al. (2014) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0109434 · Cited by 132
Self-citation
Cited by
Gibson, G. R., Hutkins, R., Sanders, M. E., Prescott, S. L., Reimer, R. A., Salminen, S. J., Scott, K., Stanton, C., Swanson, K. S., Cani, P. D., et al. (2017) · Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology · doi:10.1038/nrgastro.2017.75 · Cited by 5,634
Self-citationBenefaction of probiotics for human health: A review
George Kerry, R., Patra, J. K., Gouda, S., Park, Y., Shin, H.-S., & Das, G. (2018) · Journal of Food and Drug Analysis · doi:10.1016/j.jfda.2018.01.002 · Cited by 898
Interactions of commensal and pathogenic microorganisms with the intestinal mucosal barrier
Martens, E. C., Neumann, M., & Desai, M. S. (2018) · Nature Reviews Microbiology · doi:10.1038/s41579-018-0036-x · Cited by 711
Self-citationShaping the Future of Probiotics and Prebiotics
Cunningham, M., Azcarate-Peril, M. A., Barnard, A., Benoit, V., Grimaldi, R., Guyonnet, D., Holscher, H. D., Hunter, K., Manurung, S., Obis, D., et al. (2021) · Trends in Microbiology · doi:10.1016/j.tim.2021.01.003 · Cited by 637
Prebiotic inulin-type fructans induce specific changes in the human gut microbiota
Vandeputte, D., Falony, G., Vieira-Silva, S., Wang, J., Sailer, M., Theis, S., Verbeke, K., & Raes, J. (2017) · Gut · doi:10.1136/gutjnl-2016-313271 · Cited by 554
Immunomodulatory Effects of Probiotics on Cytokine Profiles
Azad, M. A. K., Sarker, M., & Wan, D. (2018) · BioMed Research International · doi:10.1155/2018/8063647 · Cited by 521
Flavonoids and the gastrointestinal tract: local and systemic effects
Oteiza, P. I., Fraga, C. G., Mills, D. A., & Taft, D. H. (2018) · Molecular Aspects of Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.mam.2018.01.001 · Cited by 281
Self-citationGut Dysbiosis and Muscle Aging: Searching for Novel Targets against Sarcopenia
Picca, A., Fanelli, F., Calvani, R., Mulè, G., Pesce, V., Sisto, A., Pantanelli, C., Bernabei, R., Landi, F., & Marzetti, E. (2018) · Mediators of Inflammation · doi:10.1155/2018/7026198 · Cited by 181
Ansari, F., Pourjafar, H., Tabrizi, A., & Homayouni, A. (2020) · Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology · doi:10.2174/1389201021666200107113812 · Cited by 170
Association between gut microbiota and bone health: Potential mechanisms and prospective
Chen, Y.-C., Greenbaum, J., Shen, H., & Deng, H.-W. (2017) · The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism · doi:10.1210/jc.2017-00513 · Cited by 165
Peterson, C. T. (2020) · Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine · doi:10.1177/2515690x20957225 · Cited by 160
Hall, D. A., Voigt, R. M., Cantu-Jungles, T. M., Hamaker, B., Engen, P. A., Shaikh, M., Raeisi, S., Green, S. J., Naqib, A., Forsyth, C. B., et al. (2023) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-023-36497-x · Cited by 124
Self-citationBrain modulation by the gut microbiota: From disease to therapy
Mitra, S., Dash, R., Nishan, A. A., Habiba, S. U., & Moon, I. S. (2023) · Journal of Advanced Research · doi:10.1016/j.jare.2022.12.001 · Cited by 91
Synbiotics for Improved Human Health: Recent Developments, Challenges, and Opportunities
Krumbeck, J. A., Walter, J., & Hutkins, R. W. (2018) · Annual Review of Food Science and Technology · doi:10.1146/annurev-food-030117-012757 · Cited by 84
Self-citationLorente-Picón, M., & Laguna, A. (2021) · Biomolecules · doi:10.3390/biom11030433 · Cited by 69
Silva, E. K., Bargas, M. A., Arruda, H. S., Vardanega, R., Pastore, G. M., & Meireles, M. A. A. (2020) · Molecules · doi:10.3390/molecules25173911 · Cited by 25
“The supplementation of food products and beverages with prebiotic carbohydrates, also known as fermentable dietary fibers has increased worldwide in the last years due to a unique lifestyle based on the intake of non-digestible compounds able to stimulate the growth/activity of beneficial bacteria in the human gastroi…”
BackgroundTao, W., Yu, Y., Tan, D., Huang, X., Huang, J., Lin, C., & Yu, R. (2025) · Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology · doi:10.3389/fcimb.2025.1603442 · Cited by 9
Metadata
- Authors
- Hutkins, R. W., Krumbeck, J. A., Bindels, L. B., Cani, P. D., Fahey, G., Goh, Y. J., Hamaker, B., Martens, E. C., Mills, D. A., Rastal, R. A., Vaughan, E., & Sanders, M. E.
- Venue
- Current Opinion in Biotechnology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2016-02
- Volume
- 37
- Pages
- 1-7
- ISSN
- 0958-1669 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1778260808
- Cited by
- 437
- References
- 5
- FWCI
- 4.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
