The human gut microbiome is critical in promoting human health in many aspects, like facilitating nutrient absorption, digestion, immune system regulation, and protecting against pathogens. Gut microbiota dysbiosis is associated with the pathogenesis of several infectious diseases. In this context, a combination of prebiotics and probiotics as synbiotics is emerging as a popular approach for managing immune and gastrointestinal health. Synbiotics have exhibited considerable potency in restoring eubiosis via modulating the gut microbiome. The dietary supplementation of synbiotics has shown promising results in treating infectious diseases like hepatitis, gastroenteritis, dental caries, and sepsis. Synbiotics antagonise pathogens by maintaining gut microbiota homeostasis, competing with pathogenic microorganisms for adhesion and nutrition, producing antimicrobial compounds, and stimulating immunomodulatory cells in vivo. The present article has been conceptualised to understand the potential of synbiotics as an alternative or adjunct to antibiotics in managing infectious diseases. Furthermore, it elaborates on the different formulations of synbiotics available for clinical use and their mode of action. Challenges associated and recent approaches to improve the efficacy of these therapeutics have also been addressed.
Keywords: Clinical applications; Human health; Infectious diseases; Prebiotics; Probiotics; Synbiotics.
© 2025. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.