Exploring regional variations in probiotics: Implications for efficacy and application

Probiotics are live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host. These bacteria can affect health conditions by virtue of influencing immune system components, modulating of host signaling, and modifying the microbiota. Gut microbiota-microorganisms inhabiting the gastrointestinal tract-play crucial roles in health enhancement and can be modified via microbiome-based therapeutics-including probiotics-by strengthening the epithelial barrier, competitively excluding pathogens, and interacting with the brain-gut axis. It has been demonstrated that microbiota composition varies across different populations and is affected by multiple factors such as ethnicity, lifestyle, food availability, dietary habits, climate, and genetics. Because an individual's gut microbiome can influence drug absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME), it also plays a key role in determining probiotic efficacy. On the other hand, the characteristics of probiotics are influenced by both their genetic traits and environmental factors. Additionally, there are notable variations in probiotics regulations, strain-specific effects, commercial formulations, and probiotics sources among nations and geographical areas, which may have an impact on the viability of manufacturing probiotics products. Our paper will review the current knowledge on the relationship between geographical variation and probiotics efficacy. We believe that considering this relationship can be conducive to more accurate and rigorous product quality controls and play key role in progressing personalized approaches in microbiome-based therapies.