The biotics family

Abstract

What is called ´the biotics family´ refers to a set of terms that have emerged lately in the fields of health, nutrition, and food technology. The first three members of this family, and for which there are consensus definitions, are probiotic, prebiotic, and synbiotic. In the last decade, this family has grown significantly with the incorporation of many related words containing the ´biotic´ suffix such as psychobiotic, immunobiotic, oncobiotic, enterobiotic, oralbiotic, postbiotic, paraprobiotic, proteobiotic, among others. The main problem of the uncontrolled expansion of this family is the proliferation of overlapping, misleading, or poorly defined terms, often lacking consensus on how to define them.This chapter proposes to take a look at these terms and provides a discussion to avoid the misuse of them.