Friendly bacteria
Many people are unaware that approximately 2kg of bacteria, sometimes called flora, reside in the gut.
When everything is working well, there is a balance of “good” versus “bad” bacteria. The good bacteria are required in sufficient numbers to ensure that the bad bacteria, and other pathogens, are not permitted to grow, flourish and spread, leading to illness.
There is a delicate balance, which can be easily disrupted by a range of potential factors, both internal and external. For example, stress, medication such as antibiotics, toxicity, diet, illness, age, smoking and many others.
Friendly bacteria therefore play an important role in maintaining optimum health. In particular, they are essential for nutrient absorption and immunity.
Probiotics
Friendly bacteria naturally occur in the body, but when levels start to fall and/or the balance of good versus bad bacteria is disrupted, it is important to supplement your levels of friendly bacteria. There are two ways that this can be achieved: either through probiotic foods or probiotic supplements.
Probiotic foods are foods that contain live bacterial cultures because they have been fermented in some way. For example, these can include kefir, natural yoghurt, sauerkraut, tempeh, kimchi, miso and kombucha. Including these foods in your diet can help to support digestive health, by providing you with access to additional beneficial flora.
Then why would you choose to take probiotic supplements?
Firstly, it is not always easy to incorporate enough probiotic-rich foods in your daily diet. And even if you are eating these foods, you may still not know what strains of bacteria you are accessing, or what levels of bacteria are provided.
Additionally, while you will certainly enjoy the benefits of the probiotics while you are eating these foods, they do not normally take up residence in your gut. This is because they don’t always survive the passage through your stomach due to the acidity. The result is that you only tend to get any benefit while they are going through your digestive system, and once eliminated, you will need to ensure a renewed supply for continued benefits.
For a lasting and full-spectrum support, it is therefore preferable to rely on high-strength, multi-strain probiotic capsules, which have been specially encapsulated to survive stomach acid. In this way, you can be certain of the strains provided, the areas of the body covered and the levels of good bacteria per capsule. These bacteria will also colonise the gut, ensuring they grow and multiple and you enjoy a long-term benefit.
The different types of friendly bacteria that are found include:
Lactobacilli: These are the main good bacteria living in the a healthy stomach and small gut. Its strains include: L. acidophilus, L. casei, L. delbrueckii, L. plantarum, L. rhamnosus, L. salivarius and L. sporogenes.
Bifidobacteria: These are the main good bacteria living in a healthy bowel. Levels naturally fall with age and long-term ill health. These strains of friendly bacteria help to make some vitamins, especially B-vitamins and so may be of extra help following a course of antibiotics or an infection. The strains include: B. brevis, B. longum and B. infantis.
How do probiotics work?
Good bacteria ferment fibrous foods, transforming them into special substances called organic acids. These stimulate the growth of the gut lining, reduce gut pH and hinder the growth and survival of pathogenic organisms. Probiotics also do this by competing with pathogens for space and food, by producing antibiotic-like substances and by raising the acidity of the large gut, helping to make the gut undesirable to them.