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Clasado has been developing products (Bimuno), which will revolutionise the concept of ‘healthy eating for all’, an extension of the proven concept of general health being linked to the digestive system and diet.

VISIT THE BIMUNO WEBSITE

Over the past few years, high prominence has been given to ‘probiotics’ and the link between them and general health.  Typically, this approach has utilised the addition of probiotic live cultures (these are often referred to as ‘good bacteria’, normally bifidobacteria and lactobacilli) to food so that there would be greater prevalence of ‘good bacteria’ in the gastro-intestinal tract.  This would help to reduce the numbers of ‘bad bacteria’ (for example, E.coli), which, through the toxins they produce, cause most of the common diarrhoea, colitis (although colitis is not exclusively produced by toxins of E.coli) and chronic gut disorders, hence reducing the incidence/severity of these types of diseases.

The practical problems with this approach are:

• a) the numbers of live bacteria which need to be ingested to affect the balance of good and bad bacteria naturally present in the gut and

• b) storage/distribution and shelf conditions to maintain the viability of the live probiotic cultures used.  Probiotic yoghurts and fermented milks are probably the most common examples of the current foods available.

Using this background and recognising the magnitude of contribution that could be made to overall general health and well-being of people, (particularly those in traditionally poor nutritional environments) we have focused on research aimed at eliminating the problematic approach of using live probiotic cultures.

Our research program has been conducted by the School of Food Biosciences at the University of Reading based in the UK. Over the last six years our research has focused on the method for ensuring that the 'beneficial' bacteria already present within the gut grow at a much faster rate than the 'harmful' bacteria and so maintain a positive gut balance. Through this we have achieved a new and novel method of manufacturing a novel prebiotic which acts as a specific food (prebiotic) for the 'beneficial' bacteria. This product was launched as a health food supplement in the UK in March 2007 under the brand name Bimuno. There is also a prebiotic for animal use (Bi²tos) which is currently under development by Clasado.