Pros & Cons ; Probiotics Can Help Keep Your Digestive System Healthy, but Know What You Are Buying Before Making a Purchase

By Eric Billingsley Journal Staff Writer

There are trillions of microbes living in your gastrointestinal tract that aid digestion and your body’s normal and healthy functions. And any disruption to their peaceful co-existence can lead to a host of medical problems.

“It’s hard to be healthy if you don’t have a healthy colon,” says Dr. Ben Markham, a board-certified clinical nutritionist in Albuquerque. “One of the best things we can do to stay healthy and strengthen our immune system is to keep healthy populations of bacteria in our gut.”

Enter probiotics, defined as living micro-organisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a beneficial health effect on the host, according to usprobiotics. org.

Consuming them in the form of nutritional supplements or in certain fermented foods, such as yogurt, miso or tempeh, is believed to boost digestive health, strengthen the immune system, and relieve symptoms related to irritable bowel syndrome, asthma and other ailments. But how and when do you use probiotics?

Markham says there are a couple of common factors that disrupt the healthy co-existence of microbes in our gastrointestinal tract.

Antibiotics are probably the most common.

When you get sick and take a broad spectrum antibiotic, the drug kills off all of the bacteria in your intestinal tract, leaving it vulnerable to things like yeast infections.

“Bacteria in your intestinal tract works on a competitive basis,” says Markham, adding that 80 percent of our immune system’s health is directly linked to the colon.

Poor diet is another likely culprit. Eating high amounts of sugary foods, starches, processed foods, not enough fiber, and consuming medications such as acid blockers and antacids, can increase your susceptibility to constipation and changes of acidity or alkalinity in the bowel.

All of this can affect bacterial health, Markham says.

Stress can compound the problem.

“If you’re eating right, meaning enough raw food and fiber, the chances of keeping a healthy colon are improved,” says Markham. “But when people eat a poor diet they tend to get sick easier and then take antibiotics to cure the sickness. It’s a vicious cycle.”

Restoring that healthy environment of bacteria in your gut requires a combination of putting certain cultures back in, dietary changes and stress reduction, he adds.

“We are exploiting the evolutionary relationship (these microbes) already have with us,” says Henry C. Lin, a professor of medicine at the University of New Mexico.

In a study published in the August issue of Public Library of Science (PLoS) Pathogens, a strain of Bifidobacterium was administered to mice prior to salmonella infection. Animals that received the bacteria showed dramatically increased numbers of immune cells that control the immune system’s response to harmful pathogens.

The study also showed that administration of Bifidobacterium resulted in the induction of cells that protect the host from excessive inflammation during an infection. Another study in Italy showed that a daily probiotic dose of Lactobacillus reuteri improved symptoms associated with infantile colic, according to nutraingredients-usa.com.

Lin has worked for the past 18 years studying the causes of irritable bowel syndrome. He says doctors used to view the ailment as a psychological issue and just treat pain.

But he and others have honed in on changes that occur in microbial activity in the intestines. Bifidobacterium’s potential as an anti-inflammatory may be an important part of treating IBS, he says.

“The future may look like a restaurant menu where you can pick the specific organism and know the effect it will have on the human host,” says Lin.

But consumers need to do their research before buying over-the- counter probiotic products, say Lin and Markham.

Ask these questions: What are the specific organisms in the product? Has the product been tested to ensure that the organisms are still alive during shelf life? How much do you need to ingest to achieve results? And how much of the probiotic will actually reach the target area in your body?

Lin says some nutritional supplements are “randomly concocted” and don’t fall under the same scrutiny as FDA-approved ones. And food products containing probiotics aren’t fine-tuned to address individual health ailments.

These products may be beneficial, but it’s more likely to be from chance, he says.

“You don’t want to go to (a big box retailer) for your nutritional supplements,” says Markham, adding there’s a huge difference between high-quality yogurt with live cultures and sugary dessert-type yogurts. Foods and other probiotic supplements can be useful, he says, but if you have a serious medical condition you need to see a doctor and use high-quality, wellresearched probiotics. Know your bacteria

Most probiotic products contain strains of Lactobacillus or Bifidobacterium, although Escherichia, Enterococcus, Bacillus and Saccharomyces (a yeast) have been marketed as probiotics, according to usprobiotics.org. Some commercial products that contain Bacillus are incorrectly labeled “Lactobacillus sporogenes.”

Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium aren’t foreign to the human body. These microbes are said to live in healthy human intestinal tracts, and Bifidobacteria are generally found in breast-fed infants, according to usprobiotics.org.

(c) 2008 Albuquerque Journal. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.