Postbiotics: Inactivated Microbes and Their Products


A probiotic is alive by definition. A postbiotic is the opposite case: microbes that were grown on purpose and then killed, usually by heat, together with the cell fragments and products that come with them. In 2021 a panel of the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) gave the word a formal definition, and since then the term has turned up on infant formula, food supplements, skin products and in a growing number of clinical trials. This page sets out what the 2021 consensus says, what it includes and leaves out, where inactivated microbes already turn up in ordinary fermented foods, what the human trials found (including the results that were null), the advantages that researchers claim for dead microbes over live ones, and what is still unknown. For the live organisms themselves, see the Probiotics page; for how the word “probiotic” itself was defined and re-defined, see Probiotics: History and Discovery.


Table of Contents

  1. The 2021 Consensus Definition
  2. How Postbiotics Differ from the Other “-Biotics”
  3. What Counts and What Does Not
  4. Inactivated Microbes in Everyday Fermented Foods
  5. How Dead Microbes Are Thought to Act
  6. Human Trials: Irritable Bowel Syndrome and the Gut
  7. Human Trials: Infant Formula and Childhood Infections
  8. Human Trials: Colds, Skin and Metabolism in Adults
  9. Claimed Advantages and the Safety Findings
  10. What Is Not Known
  11. Key Research Papers
  12. Connections
  13. Featured Videos

The 2021 Consensus Definition

In 2019 the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics brought together experts in nutrition, microbial physiology, gastroenterology, paediatrics, food science and microbiology to settle a term that, in the panel’s words, was “increasingly found in the scientific literature and on commercial products, yet is inconsistently used and lacks a clear definition.” Their consensus statement, first-authored by Salminen and published in 2021, defines a postbiotic as a “preparation of inanimate microorganisms and/or their components that confers a health benefit on the host.” The same abstract adds that effective postbiotics “must contain inactivated microbial cells or cell components, with or without metabolites, that contribute to observed health benefits.”

Each word in the definition was argued over, and the full text of the statement explains the choices:

The panel’s summary points add that a postbiotic does not have to come from a probiotic strain; that it has to be applied at a body surface (mouth, gut, skin, urogenital tract or nasopharynx) and that injections fall outside the term; and that the microbes have to be “deliberately inactivated.” A 2022 review by four of the panel members notes that older terms — paraprobiotics, ghostbiotics, heat-inactivated probiotics, non-viable probiotics, cell fragments and cell lysates — all fit inside the term as defined. A 2023 perspective adds that the definition “does not stipulate any specific health benefit, finished product, target population or regulatory status.”

The Probiotics: History and Discovery page already quotes this definition in its account of the 2021 panels; this page picks up where that account stops.

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How Postbiotics Differ from the Other “-Biotics”

The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics has now issued consensus definitions for five related terms. Set side by side, the difference is mostly about whether anything in the product is alive, and what it is meant to do in the body.

TermConsensus definition (quoted)Alive?
Probiotic (2001 Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization (FAO/WHO) wording, reaffirmed 2014)“live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host”Yes, by definition
Prebiotic (2017)“a substrate that is selectively utilized by host microorganisms conferring a health benefit”No — it is food for microbes already present
Synbiotic (2020)“a mixture comprising live microorganisms and substrate(s) selectively utilized by host microorganisms that confers a health benefit on the host”Yes — contains live microbes
Fermented food (2021)“foods made through desired microbial growth and enzymatic conversions of food components”Sometimes — many are eaten with live microbes, others are baked, pasteurised or filtered
Postbiotic (2021)“preparation of inanimate microorganisms and/or their components that confers a health benefit on the host”No — the microbes have been killed

Two points in that table are easy to miss. First, the synbiotic definition changed in 2020. The Probiotics page describes a synbiotic as a probiotic combined with a prebiotic; the 2020 panel kept that as one kind (a “complementary” synbiotic, in which each part has to meet its own definition) and added a “synergistic” kind, in which the fibre or other substrate is chosen to be used by the microbe it is packaged with. Second, the fermented-food definition says nothing about live microbes at all. The 2021 fermented-food panel spelled out how fermented foods differ from probiotics, and the postbiotic panel added that a fermented food is not automatically a postbiotic either (see the next two sections).

The postbiotics statement also points out an overlap. Probiotics have to contain enough living cells when taken, but the panel writes that most probiotic preparations, “especially at the end of shelf life,” also hold “potentially large numbers of dead and injured microorganisms,” and that what those dead cells do has had little attention.

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What Counts and What Does Not

The consensus is specific about the edges of the term. The following is taken from the full text of the 2021 statement.

Included

Excluded

The statement lists six criteria a preparation has to meet: molecular identification of the starting microbes (for example a fully annotated genome) with a screen for genes of safety concern; a description of the inactivation method and the growth material; confirmation that inactivation actually happened; evidence of a health benefit in the host “from a controlled, high-quality trial”; a description of the preparation’s make-up; and a safety assessment in the target host for the intended use.

The 2022 review by Vinderola and colleagues sums up the effect of these choices: the definition centres on the “progenitor microbial cell or cell fragments, not just metabolites, proteins or carbohydrates they might produce,” and those microbe-made products “are not required to be present.”

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Inactivated Microbes in Everyday Fermented Foods

Long before the word existed, people ate dead fermentation microbes every day. The postbiotics consensus says so directly: fermented foods “might also contain a substantial number of non-viable microbial cells, particularly after prolonged storage or after processing, such as pasteurization (for example, soy sauce) or baking (for example, sourdough bread).”

The 2021 fermented-foods consensus, first-authored by Marco, sorts common foods by whether live microbes are usually present when they are eaten. Its table (full text) places these foods on each side:

Live microbes usually presentLive microbes usually absent (made by fermentation, then heated, pasteurised or filtered)
Yogurt, sour cream, kefir, most cheeses, miso, natto, tempeh, unheated fermented vegetables, unheated fermented sausages, most kombuchas, some beersBread, heat-treated or pasteurised fermented vegetables and sausage, soy sauce, vinegar, some kombuchas, wine, most beers, distilled spirits, roasted coffee and cocoa beans

The same statement explains why bread sits in the second column: leavened breads “are baked after fermentation, effectively killing the fermentation microorganisms.” It proposes that pasteurised fermented foods without live microbes be labelled “foods made by fermentation” rather than as containing live cultures. Sourdough fermentation is also credited in that statement with breaking down phytate, which, it says, improves calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc uptake from these breads.

For the fermented soy foods, two points come from the sources. Miso, natto and tempeh are listed among foods that usually carry live microbes as made. And the postbiotics consensus describes Japan as a country where products made with killed lactic acid bacteria or bifidobacteria — which the researcher Mitsuoka called “biogenics” in 1998 — have been sold “for more than 100 years,” with natto and instant-type miso soup among the foods to which they are added. Most of those products carry no health claim, and the panel notes that their labels do not always say the added microbes are dead. How much heat a home cook’s miso soup or cooked natto takes, and how many cells survive, is not measured in these sources; the site’s Natto, Bacillus subtilis and Gut Health page notes that natto’s spores tolerate heat far better than active cells.

One caution follows from the definitions. A loaf of sourdough bread or a pasteurised pickle contains inanimate microbes, but under the 2021 consensus it is not “a postbiotic”: most such foods are made with undefined mixed cultures, and no health benefit has been shown for that specific preparation in a controlled trial. They are fermented foods that happen to carry dead microbes.

A small Norwegian pilot trial shows why the dead fraction is of interest. Thirty-four people with irritable bowel syndrome added either pasteurised (15 people) or unpasteurised (19 people) sauerkraut to their diet for 6 weeks. Symptom scores fell in both groups (a mean change of −38.57 points on the pasteurised product and −56.99 on the unpasteurised one), and the difference between the groups was not significant. Sauerkraut bacteria turned up in stool more often in the unpasteurised group. The authors read the result as pointing to the cabbage’s fermentation products and fibre more than to the live bacteria, while noting that the study was underpowered. It had no placebo group, so the improvement in both arms cannot be separated from a placebo effect.

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How Dead Microbes Are Thought to Act

A dead microbe cannot settle in the gut. The 2022 review states it plainly: “As postbiotics are composed of inanimate microorganisms, they cannot colonize the host. However, they can in theory modify the composition or functions of the host microbiota, although evidence for this is scarce.”

The 2021 consensus describes several proposed routes, most of them drawn from laboratory and animal work rather than proven in people:

How a microbe is killed matters. The consensus notes that heat (pasteurisation, tyndallisation, autoclaving) is the usual method, that spray drying, high pressure, irradiation and other methods are alternatives, and that the method can change what the dead cells do. In one example it describes, spray drying left some cells live with intact pili and others inactivated without them; pili are surface structures linked to how bacteria interact with the immune system. This is the reason the definition ties a postbiotic to a specific preparation rather than to a species.

For the live-bacteria side of these mechanisms, and the role of fibre-derived butyrate in the gut wall, see the interactive Gut Barrier and Your Microbiome animation.

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Human Trials: Irritable Bowel Syndrome and the Gut

The largest single trial. A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial at 20 sites in Germany (Andresen and colleagues, 2020) gave 443 adults with irritable bowel syndrome either two placebo capsules or two capsules holding a combined 1 × 109 heat-inactivated cells of Bifidobacterium bifidum MIMBb75 once a day for 8 weeks. The main outcome combined at least a 30% drop in abdominal pain with adequate relief of overall symptoms in at least 4 of the 8 weeks. It was reached by 74 of 221 people (34%) on the heat-killed bacteria and 43 of 222 (19%) on placebo (risk ratio 1.7). Put the other way, 66% of the treated group and 81% of the placebo group did not reach it. No serious adverse events occurred in the treated group; tolerability was rated good or very good by 91% versus 86%. The authors concluded that the strain’s effects are “mediated independently of cell viability.” The trial was funded by the maker of the product.

The pooled evidence. A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis (Ayad and colleagues) found four randomised controlled trials of postbiotics against placebo in adults with irritable bowel syndrome, with 1,062 participants in all. Postbiotics lowered symptom-severity scores (standardised mean difference −1.36) and raised the chance of a meaningful pain response (risk ratio 2.46). Quality of life improved with capsules but not when an enema-based study was included, and adverse-event rates were similar to placebo. The authors rated the certainty of the evidence as low, with moderate to substantial differences between trials, and called for larger, standardised trials.

The consensus statement’s own table also lists smaller adult gut studies with mixed results, including a 4-day study in 25 people with obstructive jaundice in which intestinal permeability rose in both the water and the inactivated-bacteria groups and showed only a trend toward normal with the live strain. For the wider evidence on irritable bowel syndrome, see the Irritable Bowel Syndrome page.

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Human Trials: Infant Formula and Childhood Infections

Infant formula. Formulas fermented with bacteria and then dried, so that few live cells remain, are among the postbiotic products already on sale. A 2022 updated systematic review (Szajewska and colleagues) found 11 randomised controlled trials comparing such formulas with standard formula. Five trials had a high overall risk of bias and six had “some concerns.” Most data came from formula fermented with Bifidobacterium breve C50 and Streptococcus thermophilus. The formulas were “safe and well tolerated by infants who cannot be breastfed,” but the review found that “no firm conclusion can, however, be reached regarding the clinical effects and benefit of one formula over another,” and that versions with further changes “did not offer clear benefits replicated in other studies.”

Diarrhoea and common infections in young children. A 2020 systematic review (Malagón-Rojas and colleagues) found seven randomised trials with 1,740 children under 5. In four treatment trials (224 children), heat-killed Lactobacillus acidophilus LB shortened diarrhoea by about 20 hours (mean difference −20.31 hours). In two prevention trials (537 children), heat-inactivated Lactobacillus paracasei CBA L74 lowered the risk of diarrhoea (relative risk 0.51), pharyngitis (0.31) and laryngitis (0.44). The reviewers still judged the evidence “limited” for recommending specific postbiotics.

One of those prevention trials (Corsello and colleagues, 2017) gave children aged 12 to 48 months who attended day care either 7 grams a day of cow’s milk fermented with L. paracasei CBA L74 or a maltodextrin placebo through a winter season. By intention-to-treat analysis, 60% of the fermented-milk group and 83% of the placebo group had at least one common infection in 3 months — so 40% and 17% had none. The consensus statement’s table also lists a Finnish trial in 41 children under 4 with rotavirus diarrhoea in which heat-inactivated and live Lactobacillus casei gave equal clinical recovery.

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Human Trials: Colds, Skin and Metabolism in Adults

Colds and upper-respiratory infections

Results here run in both directions.

Skin: atopic dermatitis

A 2024 systematic review (Lima and Paulino) found nine randomised trials, with 512 people evaluated, of oral non-viable lactobacilli for atopic dermatitis (eczema), most alongside steroid creams. The three adult trials reported symptom improvement, but three of the six trials in children did not report results favouring the postbiotic. The reviewers concluded that the data “do not indicate efficacy in pediatric patients” so far, and that adults might benefit when it is used as an add-on. Mild side effects were reported in one study. A 2023 perspective by Vinderola and colleagues notes that postbiotic products are also being developed as cosmetics applied to the skin and for vaginal health. See the Eczema page for the condition itself.

Metabolism: pasteurised Akkermansia muciniphila

A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study (Depommier and colleagues, 2019) enrolled 40 overweight or obese, insulin-resistant volunteers; 32 completed it. They took 1010 cells a day of Akkermansia muciniphila, either live or pasteurised, or placebo for three months. Both forms were safe and well tolerated. Compared with placebo, the pasteurised bacteria improved insulin sensitivity by about 28.6%, lowered blood insulin by about 34.1% and total cholesterol by about 8.7%. Body weight fell by 2.27 kg compared with placebo, but this was not statistically significant (P = 0.091). The authors called it a proof-of-concept study; it is small, and two of its authors hold patents on the use of this bacterium.

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Claimed Advantages and the Safety Findings

Shelf life and storage

The 2021 consensus panel lists stability as “one important factor driving interest in postbiotics.” Many probiotic organisms are sensitive to oxygen and heat, and the panel writes that long shelf life “can be readily achieved for inanimate microorganisms.” It suggests postbiotics “might also be more suited” to regions without reliable refrigerated supply chains or where heat makes live products hard to store. The authors of the German irritable bowel syndrome trial gave a similar rationale: non-viable strains “might have advantages over viable bacteria for product stability and standardisation.” These are arguments made by researchers in the field; no trial on this page compared shelf life directly.

No live-bacteria infections

Live probiotics can, rarely, enter the bloodstream. A 2019 study of hospital intensive care unit patients (Yelin and colleagues) found a markedly higher risk of Lactobacillus bloodstream infection in patients given probiotics than in those not given them, and whole-genome sequencing showed that the bacteria in patients’ blood were genetically inseparable from the bacteria in the probiotic product. Some blood isolates had picked up new mutations, including one that gave antibiotic resistance.

The postbiotics consensus argues that postbiotics “could reasonably be expected to have a better safety profile than probiotics,” because killed microbes cannot multiply and therefore “cannot cause bacteraemia or fungaemia,” risks it describes as associated with probiotics “albeit extremely rare.” The German trial authors likewise cited “safety concerns” raised for patients susceptible to infection. The 2024 eczema review gave the same reason for interest in postbiotics.

What the safety argument does not cover

The same consensus states that postbiotics “cannot be presumed to be safe solely based on the safety profile of the progenitor microorganism.” Its example: lipopolysaccharide (endotoxin) from Gram-negative bacteria can trigger sepsis and toxic shock, and it can be released when those bacteria die. The panel calls for a safety assessment of every postbiotic for its intended use. In the trials above, adverse events were similar to placebo in the German irritable bowel syndrome trial and in the 2026 meta-analysis, and the infant-formula review found the formulas safe and well tolerated — but these trials were not designed to detect rare harms, and they enrolled mostly healthy people or outpatients rather than the severely ill or immune-suppressed. The German trial, for example, excluded people with chronic inflammatory bowel disease, cancer and autoimmune disease.

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What Is Not Known

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Key Research Papers

  1. Salminen S, Collado MC, Endo A, et al. The International Scientific Association of Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) consensus statement on the definition and scope of postbiotics. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2021;18(9):649-667. PubMed PMID: 33948025
  2. Vinderola G, Sanders ME, Salminen S, Szajewska H. Postbiotics: The concept and their use in healthy populations. Front Nutr. 2022;9:1002213. PubMed PMID: 36570166
  3. Vinderola G, Druart C, Gosálbez L, et al. Postbiotics in the medical field under the perspective of the ISAPP definition: scientific, regulatory, and marketing considerations. Front Pharmacol. 2023;14:1239745. PubMed PMID: 37745060
  4. Hill C, Guarner F, Reid G, et al. Expert consensus document. The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics consensus statement on the scope and appropriate use of the term probiotic. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2014;11(8):506-514. PubMed PMID: 24912386
  5. Gibson GR, Hutkins R, Sanders ME, et al. Expert consensus document: The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) consensus statement on the definition and scope of prebiotics. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2017;14(8):491-502. PubMed PMID: 28611480
  6. Swanson KS, Gibson GR, Hutkins R, et al. The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) consensus statement on the definition and scope of synbiotics. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2020;17(11):687-701. PubMed PMID: 32826966
  7. Marco ML, Sanders ME, Gänzle M, et al. The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) consensus statement on fermented foods. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2021;18(3):196-208. PubMed PMID: 33398112
  8. Nielsen ES, Garnås E, Jensen KJ, et al. Lacto-fermented sauerkraut improves symptoms in IBS patients independent of product pasteurisation - a pilot study. Food Funct. 2018;9(10):5323-5335. PubMed PMID: 30256365
  9. Andresen V, Gschossmann J, Layer P. Heat-inactivated Bifidobacterium bifidum MIMBb75 (SYN-HI-001) in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome: a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Lancet Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2020;5(7):658-666. PubMed PMID: 32277872
  10. Ayad ME, Yu S, El Shennawy S, et al. Efficacy and Safety of Postbiotics in Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2026;41(7):1994-2005. PubMed PMID: 42103684
  11. Szajewska H, Kołodziej M, Skórka A, et al. Infant Formulas With Postbiotics: An Updated Systematic Review. J Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr. 2022;74(6):823-829. PubMed PMID: 35258495
  12. Malagón-Rojas JN, Mantziari A, Salminen S, Szajewska H. Postbiotics for Preventing and Treating Common Infectious Diseases in Children: A Systematic Review. Nutrients. 2020;12(2):389. PubMed PMID: 32024037
  13. Corsello G, Carta M, Marinello R, et al. Preventive Effect of Cow's Milk Fermented with Lactobacillus paracasei CBA L74 on Common Infectious Diseases in Children: A Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial. Nutrients. 2017;9(7):669. PubMed PMID: 28654019
  14. Murata M, Kondo J, Iwabuchi N, et al. Effects of paraprobiotic Lactobacillus paracasei MCC1849 supplementation on symptoms of the common cold and mood states in healthy adults. Benef Microbes. 2018;9(6):855-864. PubMed PMID: 30099891
  15. Hirose Y, Yamamoto Y, Yoshikai Y, Murosaki S. Oral intake of heat-killed Lactobacillus plantarum L-137 decreases the incidence of upper respiratory tract infection in healthy subjects with high levels of psychological stress. J Nutr Sci. 2013;2:e39. PubMed PMID: 25191589
  16. Lima M, Paulino LC. Oral Postbiotics as a Therapeutic Strategy for Atopic Dermatitis: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials. J Am Nutr Assoc. 2024;43(2):139-146. PubMed PMID: 37459239
  17. Depommier C, Everard A, Druart C, et al. Supplementation with Akkermansia muciniphila in overweight and obese human volunteers: a proof-of-concept exploratory study. Nat Med. 2019;25(7):1096-1103. PubMed PMID: 31263284
  18. Yelin I, Flett KB, Merakou C, et al. Genomic and epidemiological evidence of bacterial transmission from probiotic capsule to blood in ICU patients. Nat Med. 2019;25(11):1728-1732. PubMed PMID: 31700189

PubMed Topic Searches

  1. PubMed: postbiotics in randomised controlled trials
  2. PubMed: heat-killed lactobacilli in randomised trials
  3. PubMed: fermented infant formula and postbiotics
  4. PubMed: pasteurised fermented foods and health

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Connections

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