1. Probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotics : an introduction / Ravinder Nagpal, Hariom Yadav, Manoj Kumar, Shalini Jain, Yuichiro Yamashiro and Francesco Marotta -- 2. Sources, production and microencapsulation of probiotics / Dima Stefan, Bahrim Gabriela Elena and Iordachescu Gabriela -- 3. Sources and production of prebiotics / Linglin Fu and Yanbo Wang -- 4. Analysis of probiotics and prebiotics / Semih Otles and V. Hazal Ozyurt -- 5. Regulation and guidelines of probiotics and prebiotics / Arturo Anadon, Victor Castellano and Maria Rosa Martinez-Larranaga -- 6. Probiotics and prebiotics in infant nutrition / Dan W. Thomas and Vivien A. Nguyen -- 7. Probiotics and prebiotics in lipid metabolism / Derya Kocak Yanik, Ayse Binnur Erbagci and Fahrettin Gogus -- 8. Pro- and prebiotics for elderly / Lyra A., Tiihonen K., Lehtinen M.J. and Ouwehand A.C. -- 9. Probiotics and prebiotics in animal nutrition / Mattarelli Paola, Modesto Monica, Sgorbati Barbara and Tacconi Stefano -- 10. Interactions of probiotics and prebiotics with minerals / Corrie M. Whisner and Connie M. Weaver -- 11. Probiotics and prebiotics in obesity and energy metabolism / Ayse Binnur Erbagci -- 12. Probiotics and prebiotics and the gut microbiota / Eamonn M.M. Quigley -- 13. Probiotics and prebiotics in immune system protection / Esther Nova, Cristina Abad, Sonia Gomez-Martinez, Tamara Pozo-Rubio and Ascension Marcos -- 14. Probiotics and prebiotics in pediatric diarrheal disorders / Y. Vandenplas, B. Hauser, E. De Greef, T. Devreker and G. Veereman-Wauters -- 15. Probiotics for gastrointestinal diseases / Hale Akpinar -- 16. Probiotics and helicobacter pylori / Ruggiero Francavilla, Mari Elena Tripaldi, Massimiliano Praitano, Elena Lionetti and Vito Leonardo Miniello -- 17. Probiotics and prebiotics in infections / Shigeru Kamiya -- 18. Probiotics and prebiotics in cancer prevention / Vijaya K. Gogineni and Lee E. Morrow -- 19. Probiotics and prebiotics in allergy and asthma / Bengt Bjorksten -- 20. Probiotics and prebiotics in Crohn's disease / Susan Mikolaitis, Prachi Chakradeo and Ece A. Mutlu -- 21. Probiotics and prebiotics : new hope for genitourinary health / Sarika Amdekar, Avnish Kumar, Vivek Kumar Shrivastav, Desh Deepak Singh and Vinod Singh -- 22. Genomics of probiotics and prebiotics / Daniel J. O'Sullivan and Prakash M. Halami -- 23. The future of prebiotics and probiotics / Oscar Brunser, Javier A. Bravo and Martin Gotteland.