Can postbiotics boost athletic performance?

Gut health plays a crucial role in athletic performance, recovery, and immune support, with prebiotics and probiotics often used to enhance these outcomes. However, there is growing interest in postbiotics, refering to non-living microbial preparations that may offer similar benefits. This blog explores the science behind postbiotics and their potential role in supporting athlete health and performance.

https://www.mysportscience.com/post/probiotics-it-may-not-all-be-positive

Probiotics and postbiotics

Previous blogs have explored the potential health and performance benefit of probiotics. These blogs include Can probiotics help prevent illness, A gut feeling about probiotics, and Probiotics: it may not all be positive.

However, there is emerging interest in the potential benefits of postbiotics. Despite some shared core mechanisms of action, the effectiveness of probiotics is highly strain- and dose-dependent (1). For athletes, specific probiotic strains may help strengthen gut barrier integrity and as approximately 70% of the immune system resides in the gut, probiotic supplementation has been shown to support a healthy immune response to exercise (2). Certain anti-inflammatory strains have been linked to improved recovery following muscle-damaging exercise (3). Additionally, some probiotic strains may enhance the absorption of essential nutrients, such as amino acids from protein, further supporting athletic performance and recovery (4).

The potential role for postbiotics

A defining feature of probiotics is that they must be alive at the time of consumption. However, scientists have known for decades that certain non-living microorganisms can also offer health benefits. One of the biggest challenges in producing probiotic products is maintaining the viability of the organisms during manufacturing and throughout shelf life. Probiotics are particularly sensitive to moisture and tend to have limited stability when, for example, blended directly into protein powders. As a result, interest in non-living microbial ingredients has grown significantly in recent years as a potential solution to these stability issues. But if they’re no longer alive, can these microorganisms still offer health benefits to athletes?

A definition of postbiotics

A postbiotic is a preparation of inactivated microorganisms and/or their components that provides a health benefit. To qualify as a postbiotic, the preparation must contain intact cells or cell fragments; metabolites alone do not meet the definition. Postbiotics are typically produced through intentional inactivation methods such as heat treatment, radiation, or cell lysis (5).

Postbiotics have been studied for athlete-specific benefits across supplementation periods ranging from 13 days to 12 weeks. These studies have explored potential effects on various exercise-related outcomes, including performance, recovery of lost strength, body composition, perceived fatigue and soreness, daily physical condition logs, mood states, and biomarkers related to muscle damage, inflammation, immune function, and oxidative stress. Early evidence suggests that postbiotic supplementation may help support mood, reduce fatigue, and enhance overall readiness during extended periods of training (6).

Postbiotics and protein absorption

Various probiotic strains have been shown to increase amino acid absorption from plant and animal proteins with upregulating digestive enzymes being one of the proposed mechanism-of-action. Wouldn’t killing the probiotic bacteria take away their enzymatic activity? Not necessarily. Optimising the killing conditions can preserve both membrane integrity and enzymatic activity retaining the probiotic properties, showing significant increases in protein absorption through postbiotic supplementation (7).

A word of caution around postbiotics

Some of the benefits of postbiotics are thought to stem from their residual metabolic activity or from specific protein structure on the cell surface. While adding postbiotics to complex food matrices and subjecting them to stressful manufacturing processes—such as high-heat extrusion for nutrition bars—won’t 'kill' the bacteria again, but it may diminish their functional activity.

Conclusions

While postbiotics are an intriguing concept, more research is needed to further understand how postbiotics may augment health, resilience, performance, and recovery in athletes.

References

1. Jäger R, Mohr AE, Carpenter KC, Kerksick CM, Purpura M, Moussa A, Townsend JR, Lamprecht M, West NP, Black K, Gleeson M, Pyne DB, Wells SD, Arent SM, Smith-Ryan AE, Kreider RB, Campbell BI, Bannock L, Scheiman J, Wissent CJ, Pane M, Kalman DS, Pugh JN, Ter Haar JA, Antonio J. International Society of Sports Nutrition Position Stand: Probiotics. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2019, 16(1):62. doi: 10.1186/s12970-019-0329-0. 

2. Bongiovanni T, Santiago M, Zielinska K, Scheiman J, Barsa C, Jäger R, Pinto D, Rinaldi F, Giuliani G, Senatore T, Kostic AD. A Lactobacillus consortium provides insights into the sleep-exercise-microbiome nexus in proof-of-concept studies of elite athletes and in the general population. Microbiome. 2025, 13(1):1. doi: 10.1186/s40168-024-01936-4.

3. Jäger R, Purpura M, Stone JD, Turner SM, Anzalone AJ, Eimerbrink MJ, Pane M, Amoruso A, Rowlands DS, Oliver JM. Probiotic Streptococcus thermophilus FP4 and Bifidobacterium breve BR03 Supplementation Attenuates Performance and Range-of-Motion Decrements Following Muscle Damaging Exercise. Nutrients. 2016, 8(10):642. doi: 10.3390/nu8100642. 

4. Jäger R, Zaragoza J, Purpura M, Iametti S, Marengo M, Tinsley GM, Anzalone AJ, Oliver JM, Fiore W, Biffi A, Urbina S, Taylor L. Probiotic Administration Increases Amino Acid Absorption from Plant Protein: a Placebo-Controlled, Randomized, Double-Blind, Multicenter, Crossover Study. Probiotics Antimicrob Proteins. 2020, 12(4):1330-1339. doi: 10.1007/s12602-020-09656-5.

5. Salminen S, Collado MC, Endo A, Hill C, Lebeer S, Quigley EMM, Sanders ME, Shamir R, Swann JR, Szajewska H, Vinderola G. The International Scientific Association of Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) consensus statement on the definition and scope of postbiotics. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2021, :649-667. doi: 10.1038/s41575-021-00440-6. 

6. Kerksick CM, Moon JM, Jäger R. It's Dead! Can Postbiotics Really Help Performance and Recovery? A Systematic Review. Nutrients. 2024, 16(5):720. doi: 10.3390/nu16050720. 

7. Florez CM, Zaragoza J, Prather J, Parra M, Davis J, Vargas A, Ross A, Jäger R, Purpura M, Guglielmetti S, Tinsley GM, Taylor L. Postbiotic Supplementation Increases Amino Acid Absorption from Plant-Based Meal: A Placebo-Controlled, Randomized, Double-Blind, Crossover Study. Probiotics Antimicrob Proteins. 2025 Feb 24. doi: 10.1007/s12602-025-10480-y.