Nutrition and Health Sciences, Department of

 

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

4-2014

Citation

Topics in Clinical Nutrition 29:2 (April/June 2014), pp. 139–149.

doi: 10.1097/01.TIN.0000445898.98017.eb

Comments

Copyright © 2014 Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Used by permission.

Abstract

Health care providers (N = 256) completed an online questionnaire to assess their knowledge, perceptions, and use of probiotics and prebiotics. Participants were familiar with probiotics (88%) but not with prebiotics (22%). Probiotics (62%) and prebiotics (55%) were perceived as being “somewhat” to “quite a bit” beneficial to health (μ = 3.6 ± 1.0 and 3.6 ± 1.2, respectively). Health care providers were “quite a bit” to “very much” willing to recommend probiotics (77%) and prebiotics (83%) if substantiated with literature. Despite this belief, they did not recommend probiotics (45%) or prebiotics (26%) to patients or read current research (75% and 76%, respectively).

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