Probiotics and Cancer: Boosting the Immune System

The concept of use of functional food/probiotics in the recent years as adjuvants for prevention and treatment of cancer has been on rise owing to their capabilities to restrain the host immune response and modulate the intestinal microflora. Numerous studies have proved that probiotics can be of potential use in the prevention and treatment of cancer through microbiota and immune modulation, condensed bacterial translocation, enhanced gut barrier function, anti-inflammatory, anti-pathogenic activity, reduced tumour formation, reduced metastasis, etc. Probiotics refer to live microbial incorporations available in a variety of food, mainly the fermented ones. Other than that, bacteria producing lactic acid, perceived to have useful properties such as resistance to pathogens, improving lactose digestion, etc. are also commonly referred as probiotics. The present chapter discusses the role of various probiotic strains in cancer and summarizes the important findings in relation to the probiotic mediated suppression of gastrointestinal and extra-intestinal cancers.