13th October SASNET Brown bag lunch seminar on Lactic Acid Bacteria
On Thursday 13 October 2011, at 12.00, SASNET held its second Brown bag lunch seminar during the fall semester 2011. Associate Professor Åsa Ljungh from the Section of Medical Microbiology, Department of Laboratory Medicine talked about ”Lactic acid bacteria – from stone age man to functional food”. Dr. Ljungh works in collaboration with Indian researchers.
An interested audience listened to Dr. Ljungh talking about Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB, Lactobacillus sp, Bifidobacteria sp and others), prevalent in nature since the stone age.
As long as we know, LAB have been used to ferment food, and as a means for preservation of food. Nowadays, our intestinal content of LAB has decreased, and this is part of the reason that the prevalences of several gastrointestinal disturbances have increased. With modern technology, several important and beneficial criteria of LAB have been demonstrated such as antagonistic effect against enteric pathogens, binding of potentially carcinogenic substances (evoking cancer), effects on the immune system, and production of antioxidants which bind reactive oxygen species, ROS, which are produced in our intestine and are very toxic. Part of this knowledge has lead to that multiple preparations are sold as “beneficial for your health, prevents against travellers´ diarrhea” etc. but the doses of LAB are low, the shelf life is not documented, and there are few scientific reports documenting their effects. Clearly, more scientific studies are needed to document their beneficial effects!
The aim of SASNET’s Brown Bag seminars, introduced in January 2011, is to present and disseminate the eminent South Asia related research that is carried out in so many departments at Lund University.
The seminars are open to the public, and during the fall 2011 they are held once a month at Thursdays at Murbeckssalen, Gula Villan (inside the Botanical Gardens), Östra Vallgatan 14, Lund.
