**Acknowledgement**

The research was funded by Executive Unit for Financing Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation (UEFISCDI) in the frame of the Project PN-II-ID-PCE-2008-2 (ID\_1359). The microorganisms were kindly provided by Chr. Hansen, Romania.

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	- [31] Li Z, Pan QH, Jin ZM, He JJ, Liang NN, Duan CQ (2009) Evolution of 49 Phenolic Compounds in Shortly-Aged Red Wines Made from Cabernet Gernischt (*Vitis vinifera* L. cv.). Food sci. biotechnol. 18: 1001-1012.

**Section 4** 

**Health Applications Purposes** 

**Section 4** 

**Health Applications Purposes** 

194 Lactic Acid Bacteria – R & D for Food, Health and Livestock Purposes

cv.). Food sci. biotechnol. 18: 1001-1012.

[31] Li Z, Pan QH, Jin ZM, He JJ, Liang NN, Duan CQ (2009) Evolution of 49 Phenolic Compounds in Shortly-Aged Red Wines Made from Cabernet Gernischt (*Vitis vinifera* L.

**Chapter 8** 

© 2013 Harzallah and Belhadj, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2013 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,

As it was reported by Chow (2002), the notion that food could serve as medicine was first conceived thousands of years ago by the Greek philosopher and father of medicine, Hippocrates, who once wrote: 'Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food'. However, during recent times, the concept of food having medicinal value has been reborn as 'functional foods'. The list of health benefits accredited to functional food continues to increase, and the gut is an obvious target for the development of functional foods, because it acts as an interface between the diet and all other body functions. One of the most promising areas for the development of functional food components lies in the use of probiotics and prebiotics which scientific researches have demonstrated therapeutic evidence. Nowadays, consumers are aware of the link among lifestyle, diet and good health, which explains the emerging demand for products that are able to enhance health beyond providing basic nutrition. Besides the nutritional valaes, ingestion of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and their fermented foods has been suggested to confer a range of health benefits including immune system modulation, increased resistance to malignancy, and infectious illness (Soccol, et al., 2010). LAB were first isolated from milk. They can be found in fermented products as meat, milk products, vegetables, beverages and bakery products. LAB occur naturally in soil, water, manure, sewage, silage and plants. They are part of the microbiota on mucous membranes, such as the intestines, mouth, skin, urinary and genital organs of both humans and animals, and may have a beneficial influence on these ecosystems. LAB that grow as the adventitious microflora of foods or that are added to foods as cultures are generally considered to be harmless or even an advantage for human

**Lactic Acid Bacteria as Probiotics:** 

**Characteristics, Selection Criteria** 

**and Role in Immunomodulation** 

**of Human GI Muccosal Barrier** 

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Daoud Harzallah and Hani Belhadj

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/50732

**1. Introduction** 

**Chapter 8** 
