Probiotic Supplements – What Are The Benefits?Probiotic supplements have been popular for decades. Many people consider them an essential addition to a healthy diet, whether taken long term or on a temporary basis. Taking probiotic supplements is a way of keeping a healthy balance of gut flora, to help your digestion work efficiently.What Are Probiotic Supplements?A widely used definition of probiotics is the one suggested by Roy Fuller in 1989 - "A live microbial feed supplement which beneficially affects the host ... by improving its intestinal microbial balance.”Probiotics supplements come in tablet, capsule, powder or drink form. They contain one or more strains of bacteria that are helpful to your digestion. Bacteria commonly used include various strains of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria. ‘Lacto’ means to do with milk, and Lactobacillus Acidophilus is the bacteria which turns milk into yogurt, giving it the distinctive acidic taste of live yoghurt. Other Lactobacilli found in probiotic supplements include Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Lactobacillus casei, and Lactobacillus johnsonii. There are 100s of strains of helpful bacteria.
What Are ‘Good Bacteria’ And What Do They Do?‘Good bacteria’, or ‘friendly bacteria’, are the bacteria living in your gut which have a positive effect on your health. You have perhaps ten times as many bacteria in your gut as you have cells in your body. Many of these bacteria, or gut flora, are vital to your health. They -
You have some 400 – 800 different species of bacteria living inside you. Some estimates go as high as 1000.
How Do They Get There?Before birth a baby’s gut is clean - there are no bacteria, good or bad. The first bacteria are introduced from the mother’s milk – a sort of natural probiotic supplement. (Mother’s milk also contains enzymes to help baby digest the milk.) These first bacteria, like the baby, thrive on a diet of healthy raw milk and soon populate the baby’s digestive tract. Later, when baby starts on solid foods (hopefully fruit and veg) the friendly bacteria are there to help digest them.If a baby isn’t fed mother’s milk, he or she won’t get any probiotics from formula feed. This is one reason formula fed babies are more likely to develop food allergies and digestive problems. But it doesn’t mean the formula fed baby can never be healthy – they can catch up to some extent with the breast fed babies. ‘Good’ or ‘friendly’ bacteria are also in the air we breathe, in the soil, and also on raw foods – cooking destroys them. So any normal baby doing normal baby things – crawling around, investigating everything, putting everything in his or her mouth, is going to pick up quite a lot of good bacteria. (Also some ‘bad’ ones for his or her immune system to practise on. This is how babies develop immunity to many diseases, including tetanus.)
So Why Do I Need Probiotic Supplements?If we get probiotics with our first meals in life, why do we need to take supplements?Well, you can lose your good bacteria. This can happen either directly as the result of illness, or through taking antibiotics. Severe diarrhoea can flush out the friendly bacteria, or the microbes causing the illness can overwhelm them. Antibiotics kill off all the microbes in your body, leaving your gut empty of good and bad bacteria. Unfortunately, chances are that unhealthy microbes, such as yeasts, will repopulate your gut before the good ones can. So a course of antibiotics, while dealing with one infection, may lead to a long-term imbalance of gut flora, causing ongoing health problems (such as
systemic candida
).
If you’re taking antibiotics, or if you’ve ever taken them, you could do with taking a course of probiotic supplements.
How Long Do I Need To Take Probiotic Supplements?There’s no harm in taking them every day as part of your daily supplement regime. Many people do. In fact some studies show that once supplements stop, the good bacteria you’ve introduced are soon lost. This depends a lot on your diet.A healthy diet with lots of vegetables and whole grains encourages the growth of good bacteria. But the standard modern diet, high in cooked food, sugars and starches and low in fibre encourages the growth of unhealthy gut flora, especially yeasts. To gain the most benefits of probiotics, you also need prebiotics. Prebiotics are, basically, food for probiotics. Prebiotics are often the part of the food that we can’t digest, such as dietary fibre, especially soluble fibre. Yet another reason to eat lots of vegetables and wholegrains!
Natural Probiotic SupplementsThere are foods that are naturally rich sources of good bacteria. Most parts of the world have some traditional form of fermented or cultured food that’s been known for centuries to be helpful to digestion, and health in general.
All of these foods contain bacteria such as lactobacillus strains. You can make your own, or buy them in stores, but beware of modern versions that may be pasteurised. Pasteurisation kills all the bacteria, destroying any health benefit. Yogurt is a typical example. It became very popular as a health food in the 60s, but has become commercialised since then. Most yogurts in stores today are pasteurised, and often have sugar added. These are not healthy foods – look for the word ‘live’ on the packet. Good quality yogurts should state something like, ‘contains live Lactobacillus Acidophilus’ or whatever bacteria it has. Most have at least two strains of good bacteria. Soya sauce is another example where the modern version is quite different – and far less healthy – than the traditional. Far from being fermented, cheap modern soy sauces are simply salted water with soybean extract in them, and some coloring. Always buy real soy sauce that has been brewed or fermented. The label on my bottle of Tamari Soy Sauce says ‘traditionally brewed and aged’. Good quality soy sauces are available in health food stores. These traditional foods can all be considered to be natural probiotic supplements. They can be used as a regular part of your diet to help keep a healthy balance of flora in your gut.
Best ProbioticsThe best probiotic supplements contain several strains of bacteria. Research shows that supplements with more than one strain of friendly bacteria are more effective than those with only one.*
The best probiotics also contain prebiotics to encourage the growth of the probiotics. Some tablets or capsules are ‘enteric coated’. This is a coating that protects the contents from being digested – and destroyed – in your stomach. This means that all of the probiotics reach your intestines. There are many brands of probiotic on the market, available either online or in stores. They can be in capsules, tablets, drinks or powder form. One of the best value probiotics you can buy online is from Credence at
www.vitalminerals.org.
It contains 6 different strains of probiotic in a powder form that you mix with warm water. This is my first choice, as I trust
Credence
to produce good quality products at reasonable prices.
*Timmerman HM, Koning CJ, Mulder L, Rombouts FM, Beynen AC (Nov 2004). “Monostrain, multistrain and multispecies probiotics—A comparison of functionality and efficacy”. Int. J. Food Microbiol. 96 (3):219-33. Williams E, Stimpson J, Wang D et al. (Sep 2008). “Clinical trial: a multistrain probiotic preparation significantly reduces symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome in a double-blind placebo-controlled study”.Aliment. Pharmacol. Ther. 29 (1): 97-103. from Probiotic Supplements to Natural Health For You home page |
Natural Health Consultant
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