The bacteria in your body can be of two types: unhealthy or harmless. While unhealthy bacterias cause infections and diseases, such as tuberculosis, healthy bacteria helps with digestion and absorption of important nutrients.
What are Probiotics?
Majority of bacteria in your gut are healthy and harmless.
With the right gut bacteria, you get the following health benefits:
● Improved digestion
● Better absorption of nutrition
● Weight loss
● Enhanced immune system
● Reduced risk of certain diseases
Probiotics, a certain type of healthy bacteria, provide numerous health benefits when consumed via food, probiotics capsules or supplement. Once they colonize your gut, they provide several health benefits.
Probiotic Foods
Although probiotics are popularly considered bacteria, certain types of yeast may also function as probiotic.
You can get probiotics from the following food sources:
● Yogurt
● Tempeh
● Kimchi
● Sauerkraut
Apart from this, you can also consume food or products that contain both prebiotics and probiotics, products that are popularly known as synbiotics.
Types of probiotic bacteria:
● Lactobacillus
● Bifidobacteria
Other strains are available as well, but the aforementioned two are the most popular ones.
Benefits of Probiotic Supplements
Probiotics provide many health benefits including better immune system and digestive system. Let’s look at some of the most essential benefits of consuming probiotic supplements.
Increase Friendly Bacteria in your Gut
Because of consuming antibiotics directly or poultry treated with antibiotics, our body loses a lot of healthy bacteria, which are responsible for breaking down complex nutrition sources.
This leads to constipation and gas.
Taking probiotics restores the healthy gut bacteria, improving the ability of the digestive system to break down complex protein and carbs.
While you should generally consume probiotics, its consumption becomes even more important when you’re taking antibiotic medications.
Prevents and Treats Diarrhea
With an ability to prevent and treat diarrhea, probiotics become a necessary supplement for everyone.
Antibiotics generally kill the healthy bacteria in the gut, leading to a higher risk of diarrhea. So taking probiotics will reduce your risk of the same.
However, it is important to take a probiotic with a mix of multiple bacterial species to avail such benefits.
Reduce Symptoms of Some Digestive Disorders
Probiotics may help in relieving symptoms of the following digestive system disorders:
● Inflammatory bowel disease:
○ Chron’s disease
○ Ulcerative Colitis
● Irritable bowel syndrome
May Boost your Immune System
Apart from improving the levels of healthy bacteria in your gut, probiotics boost the function of the immune system.
By promoting the production of natural antibodies and providing a boost to specific types of immune cells, probiotics can improve your ability to fend off infections.
Some research shows that taking probiotics may reduce the risk and duration of infections related to the respiratory system.
Other Health Benefits
Apart from the aforementioned advantages, probiotics may also:
● Help with weight loss
● Improve heart health
● Reduce symptoms of certain skin conditions
● Reduce risk of certain mental health conditions
Probiotics and Antibiotics
When you have a bacterial infection, your doctor usually prescribes antibiotics to treat it faster. However, these antibiotics kill both the bad and the good bacteria in our body.
Because of this, many people on antibiotics experience side effects including diarrhea. In some cases, the bad bacteria take advantage of the extra space and colonize your gut.
Research shows that taking probiotics can reduce the risk of experiencing antibiotic induced diarrhea.
What are Prebiotics?
Prebiotics are fibers meant for gut bacteria. By feeding on this fiber, the bacteria in your gut can grow and colonize better.
Prebiotic foods include:
● Apples
● Bananas
● Barley
● Cocoa
● Flaxseed
● Garlic
● Onions
● Wheat
Some probiotic supplements contain prebiotics to enhance the health effects.
Best Probiotic Supplement
Although you can consume probiotics from food sources, taking supplements has additional health benefits. Because sticking to a proper diet isn’t a strong suit for many people, relying on supplements makes it easy to meet the adequate intake.
Roncuvita’s probiotics supplement comes with prebiotics to provide you with the maximum health benefits.
Infused with healthy prebiotics and probiotics, this supplement will balance out healthy bacteria in your gut.
It contains:
● 154mg of multi-strain 60 billion CFU probiotic complex
● 150mg of organic prebiotic
● 200mg of digestive enzyme complex
Designed with a focus on providing benefits such as immune and digestive system enhancement, this prebiotic + probiotic supplement will improve your overall health.
How to Store Probiotics?
Since probiotic strains die because of exposure to heat, light, humidity, and oxygen, it is important to keep the supplement in a cool and dark place, such as your fridge. Refrigeration keeps certain strains of probiotics viable, so even if you consume them after a long time of purchasing, they’ll be effective.
Conclusion
Probiotics are considered safe and improve gut health. They may also provide skin benefits and enhance the immune function. However, taking probiotics regularly is essential. Either consume probiotics from food or purchase a good probiotics supplement.
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