The Power of Probiotics
The Gut
Most digestion in the human body happens within three key organs: the stomach, the small intestine, and the large intestine or colon. Each organ functions uniquely to accomplish a specific goal. The stomach breaks down food into a form more easily used by the body, the small intestine absorbs vitamins and nutrients from the food for use by the body, and the large intestine absorbs the water necessary to keep our body functioning (remember we are made up of 60% water!). Each of this organs is made up of specialized structures and cells to help them accomplish these goals by they all get help from an unlikely ally, bacteria.
The Gut’s Greatest Ally
That’s right bacteria! The same microscopic living organisms that can reek so much havoc on our bodies are also vital to our digestive system functioning properly. The average person has between 300 and 500 strains of what we like to call good bacteria within their digestive system. These bacteria play pivotal roles including breaking down food that our body does not have the ability to digest, synthesizing vitamins such as Vitamin B12 which is entirely dependent on bacterial synthesis, due to plants and animals not having the necessary enzymes, and controlling inflammation and immune response throughout the body. 1
Friendly Fire
Now that we’ve established how important these friendly stowaways are lets talk about all the ways we destroy the good bacteria of our gut. The most obvious way may be our over reliance on antibiotics. While antibiotics were a pivotal discovery that has likely saved millions of lives our overuse of antibiotics for inappropriate conditions has created new problems. Antibiotics are used to kill the bacteria that cause things like strep throat, sinus infections, and pneumonia but they are unable to differentiate between what is good bacteria and what is bad. This means when we take antibiotics we are potentially killing all of the friendly bacteria in our gut. Some other things that can influence our gut microbiome include poor diet, stress, and not getting enough sleep.
Calling in the Reinforcements
So how can we support the good bacteria of our gut so that it can continue supporting healthy digestion for us? In addition to a healthy diet, stress management, and getting enough sleep we can supplement our gut bacteria using prebiotics and probiotics. Prebiotics are nothing more than specialized food for the bacteria in our guts. They help keep the bacteria happy and fed so it can do its job. Probiotics are actually living strains of bacteria that are already known to live in our digestive system. Adding the bacteria back into our diets can supplement the bacteria we are killing through our lifestyle choices and by using antibiotics. Supplementing the bacteria in our gut by using probiotics has been shown to have some pretty amazing results. In addition to better digestion studies have shown that probiotics can help with weight loss2, supporting a healthy heart3, improving mood4 and boosting the immune system5!
How to Choose a Probiotic
When looking for a probiotic you should choose one with at least 1 billion colony forming units, this ensures that the probiotic is potent enough to colonize your digestive tract. You should also look for probiotics that contain strains from the Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium or Saccharomyces Boulardii families as these are the most widely studied probiotics with the highest numbers of known benefits. We like to recommend choosing a probiotic that has at least a few different strains providing some variety and furthering strengthening the resilience of your gut microbiome. Some probiotics must be refrigerated while others are stable at room temperature, you should take this into consideration if you are buying online with long shipping distances or are traveling often with limited access to refrigeration.
Our top picks:
Ther-Biotic Synbiotic by Klaire Labs Colony Forming Units: 50 Billion Strains: Bifidobacterium bifidum
- Bifidobacterium lactis
- Lactobacillus acidophilus
- Lactobacillus paracasei
- Lactobacillus plantarum
- Lactobacillus reuteri
- Lactobacillus rhamnosus
Ortho-Biotic by Ortho Molecular Products Colony Forming Units: 23 Billion Strains: Bifidobacterium bifidum
- Bifidobacterium lactis
- Lactobacillus acidophilus
- Lactobacillus paracasei
- Lactobacillus plantarum
- Lactobacillus rhamnosus
- Saccharomyces boulardii
UltraFlora Balance by Metagenics Colony Forming Units: 15 Billion Strains: Bifidobacterium lactis
- Lactobacillus acidophilus
References
- Quigley EM. Gut bacteria in health and disease. Gastroenterol Hepatol (N Y). 2013;9(9):560-569.
- Guazzelli Marques C, de Piano Ganen A, Zaccaro de Barros A, Thomatieli Dos Santos RV, Dos Santos Quaresma MVL. Weight loss probiotic supplementation effect in overweight and obesity subjects: A review. Clin Nutr. 2020 Mar;39(3):694-704. doi: 10.1016/j.clnu.2019.03.034. Epub 2019 Apr 3. PMID: 30987812.
- Peng J, Xiao X, Hu M, Zhang X. Interaction between gut microbiome and cardiovascular disease. Life Sci. 2018 Dec 1;214:153-157. doi: 10.1016/j.lfs.2018.10.063. Epub 2018 Oct 29. PMID: 30385177.
- Pirbaglou M, Katz J, de Souza RJ, Stearns JC, Motamed M, Ritvo P. Probiotic supplementation can positively affect anxiety and depressive symptoms: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Nutr Res. 2016 Sep;36(9):889-898. doi: 10.1016/j.nutres.2016.06.009. Epub 2016 Jun 21. PMID: 27632908.
- Frei R, Akdis M, O'Mahony L. Prebiotics, probiotics, synbiotics, and the immune system: experimental data and clinical evidence. Curr Opin Gastroenterol. 2015 Mar;31(2):153-8. doi: 10.1097/MOG.0000000000000151. PMID: 25594887.
