Prebiotics

While probiotics are the actual friendly bacteria (hopefully, depending on what the manufacturer put in the capsules), prebiotics are regarded as the food for the desirable bacteria. They usually discriminately favor desirable bacteria (to different degrees of specifity), such as bifidogenic meaning they are good food specifically for bifidobacteria. As well as being naturally in certain foods, prebiotics can also be bought as a separate supplement and often are added to probiotics. Common prebiotics used are fructooligosaccharide powder and/or inulin. If bloodborne body odor or bloodborne halitosis had a dysbiosis connection (often sufferers feel they have a gut ecology problem), then perhaps prebiotics could play a role along with probiotics. The NIH recommend lactulose for trimethylaminuria.

Prebiotic (nutrition)

According to Gibson and Roberfroid as referred to in Wikipedia, prebiotics are functional and beneficial non-digestible food ingredients that “selectively stimulating the growth and/or activity of one or a limited number of bacteria in the colon, and thus improve host health.” The most prevalent forms of prebiotics are nutritionally classed as soluble fiber. To some extent, many forms of dietary fiber exhibit some level of prebiotic effect.

Sources of prebiotics:

Traditional dietary sources of prebiotics include soybeans, inulin sources (such as Jerusalem artichoke, jicama, and chicory root), raw oats, unrefined wheat, unrefined barley and yacon. Some of the oligosaccharides that naturally occur in breast milk are believed to play an important role in the development of a healthy immune system in infants, but these are not considered prebiotics, as they do not act through the intestinal microflora.

Prebiotic oligosaccharides are increasingly added to foods for their health benefits. Some oligosaccharides that are used in this manner are fructooligosaccharides (FOS), xylooligosaccharides (XOS), polydextrose and galactooligosaccharides (GOS). Some monosaccharides such as tagatose are also used sometimes as prebiotics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prebiotic_(nutrition)
http://www.food-info.net/uk/ff/prebiotics.htm