16 Jan How Probiotics Can Help You From The Inside Out
The studies of probiotics and gut health are expanding. Something that doctors once looked over, they are now finally understanding how big of an impact our gut health can be to our overall health. You probably hear advice to take probiotics and maybe you’re a little skeptical because it seems all the rage and trend right now. But, I promise…..it’s a good trend that will last a lifetime.
So, what are probiotics?
In our body, we are made of more bacteria than human cells. Can you believe that? We are a walking bacteria! Probiotics are live bacteria and yeast that are beneficial for keeping a healthy digestive tract. In your digestive tract, you have tons of bacteria, good and bad. The goal for taking probiotics is to keep the good gut flora greater than the bad gut flora that we come into contact with. Remember, we are constantly being exposed to outside bacteria and potential invaders by eating, drinking, etc.
When our good bacteria outweighs the bad, we have a strong immune system (since 70-80% of our immune system is in the gut), successful digestion of certain vitamins, have a healthy metabolism, and great overall health.
It may seem that probiotics are all the new rage and trend, but our ancestors always had probiotics by consuming fermented foods. They fermented their foods to expand shelf life since they didn’t have refrigeration, but little did they know, they were constantly ingesting good bacteria. With our society today, fermented foods aren’t common anymore. We just want fast, ready-to-eat, processed foods.
Probiotics are also in soil – this is what it means to get your hands dirty with real food! But we have over commercialized food to where many vegetables and fruits are cleaned and scrubbed with chemicals to make it super clean. We are missing the importance of the soil microbes being in our diet!
Let’s dive into some studies that really show how beneficial probiotics are!
What can they do for your health?
Let’s start at the obvious – gut health. Probiotics have been studied to help IBS by improving symptoms and decreasing abdominal discomfort. Another study that was shown to have probiotics help symptoms,
This represents a median reduction of 42% in the symptom score of the probiotic group compared with 6% in the placebo group.
With constipation, there has been a couple of smaller studies that show probiotics being beneficial for constipation. A study showed that not just one strain helped constipation, but a mixture of different probiotic strains were needed. The stool frequency increased, as did the consistency.
Since our gut is linked to everything in our body, it’s being studied to be helpful with atopic dermatitis. Intestinal permeability is involved with atopic dermatitis, so a study in the Journal of Pediatrics showed that taking probiotics can help with improve the intestinal barrier wall, which in turn is beneficial for anyone with atopic dermatitis.
In a study done by the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology, it studied pregnant moms and infants for allergies and atopic dermatitis. While the probiotics didn’t have any effect on allergies, but significantly prevented eczema & atopic dermatitis.
If you or anyone you know takes any protein pump inhibitors for GERD – they are at a increased risk of bad bacteria overgrowth in the stomach and intestines because the stomach acidity is lowered and bad bacteria can survive. A study that was done by Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, showed that a probiotic mixture was able decrease the amount of bad bacteria and yeast at the end of the trial.
Even as simple as something like the common cold, studies are showing that probiotics can reduce the severity and length of the cold. Remember, that your gut is a majority of your immune system.
The gut is known as the ‘second brain’ because our gut and the balance of bacteria that it has can influence you mentally by behavior and mood, and even brain development.
Believe it or not, when your gut bacteria is imbalanced it can also create those sugary cravings, which leads to unhealthy eating and obesity.
Bad bugs produce toxins called lipopolysacchardies (LPS) that trigger inflammation, insulin resistance or pre-diabetes and therefore, promote weight gain.
In the Obesity Journal, a study that was done on mice showed that probiotic strains reduced the fat accumulation in fat tissue on our body and liver.
Chris Kresser explains it best talking about how certain gut bacteria cause cravings and more,
When microbes break down (metabolize) dietary substrates, they produce by-products called metabolites. Microbial metabolites include many neuroactive agents (12, 13) that are small enough to penetrate the selectively permeable blood-brain barrier. Studies on chocolate cravings have found that even when eating identical diets, people who are “chocolate desiring” have different microbial breakdown products in their urine than people who are “chocolate indifferent” (14, 15).
So what are some of these metabolites? Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), breakdown products produced from the fermentation of dietary fiber in the GI tract, are able to modify the expression of genes in cells throughout the body, including brain cells. In particular, the SCFA butyrate has been shown to dampen the inflammatory response of microglia, the immune cells of the brain (16), and has profound effects on behavior and mood in mice (17).
Are your probiotics making it’s way to the gut?
Not all probiotics are equal. There are different probiotics strains that do different things in the body. Some probiotics strains may not even make its way to the intestines and are killed by stomach acid.
Make sure to download your free probiotic checklist to understand what the different strains do and if they survive in the GI tract!
What are PREbiotics?
Simply put, prebiotics are the food that probiotics thrive on. Some common prebiotic sources would be fiber-rich sources, like the skin of fruits and vegetables, raw onions & garlic, chicory root, and green bananas.
Prebiotics are shown to help increase the satiety hormones, which makes you realize when you are full, so you don’t overeat. Prebiotics really nourish and encourage the healthy growth of good gut bacteria. Prebiotics & probiotics are both huge components of a healthy gut and maintaining that good gut bacteria balance over bad gut bacteria.
Have you ever checked out Silver Fern Probiotics?
Silver Fern has a probiotic that is pharmaceutical grade and studied to survive your GI tract – those are some harsh acids to survive in the stomach and the strains this probiotic has DOES survive. In the FREE PROBIOTIC CHECKLIST you downloaded from above, I talk about the benefits of the various probiotic strains and the strains included in Silver Fern’s Probiotic are on my list!
- Saccharomyces Boulardii
- Pediococcus Acidilactici
- Bacillus Subtilis
- Bacillus Coagulans
- Bacillus Clausii
It’s DNA tested as well, third party tested. Remember, it’s not always about the amount of probiotics a supplement has, but the quality and survivability of the strains!
Go check them out at their website Silver Fern Brand and see if this supplement is right for you! We’ve personally been taking this probiotic and love it! We love the science behind these specific strains, instead of just wasting money on many probiotics on the market. It’s time to create that balanced gut health and reclaim your health!
As Hippocrates says, IT ALL BEGINS IN THE GUT!
