CONSUMING five portions of fruit and vegetables, and drinking two litres of water a day to maintain a healthy digestive system is nothing new.
However research suggests that that ingesting more probiotic foods, such as yoghurt, milk, sauerkraut, pickles, cold meats and wine, also has its benefits and should not be ignored.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference to introduce Seven Seas’ Bion 3, an advanced complete multivitamin with probiotic nutrients, Dietetic Association president Eleni Andreou said more and more evidence suggested the probiotic food supplements was beneficial to health.
The clinical dietician explained that probiotics were beneficial, living micro-organisms which entered through the mouth and remained alive during their passage from the gastrointestinal tract, activating as soon at the reached the large intestine, where suitable physiochemical conditions allowed their development.
“So the question is what nutritional effects do probiotics exactly have, how can they contribute towards our health and why do we need them?”
Andreou said flora in the gut differed from person to person depending on poor nutrition and the consumption of fatty foods, alcohol consumption, insufficient fibre intake from fruits, vegetables or cereals, irregular meals, food poisoning, antibiotics, stress, and travelling abroad as long trips upsets the balance of the gut.
But Andreou said that by taking probiotic supplements balance of gut flora could be replaced.
“By consuming probiotics on a regular basis we can achieve a series of benefits,” she said.
These include reinforcing the body’s defence mechanisms by suspending the development of harmful micro-organisms and the destruction of toxic substances, strengthening resistance to infection, reducing symptoms and duration of symptoms for fever or a common cold, improving symptoms related to lactose intolerance, improving the quality of life in patients suffering from inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, reducing LDL cholesterol as well as the risk of heart conditions such as hypertension, cancer fighting benefits, helping in the better assimilation of calcium, helping fight bad breath and reducing peptic gas.
Andreou said not only could people supplement their diet with the available probiotic products on the market to maintain a healthy digestive system, but they should also eat a well balanced diet, have frequent meals, eat plenty of fruit and vegetables and fibre, drink plenty of fluids, reduce stress and take frequent exercise.
The clinical dietician said probiotics were manufactured with and contained large quantities of vitamins B3 and B6, folic acid and biotin, and produced lactase, an enzyme that helped in the breakdown of dairy products in the digestive system. She also said they acted as a preservative, by lowering the pH and creating fewer opportunities for spoilage organisms to grow, had cancer fighting properties, and helped improve bowel movement and its ability to absorb nutritional substances from food.
“According to the golden rule probiotics should be used in people suffering from serious, chronic digestive system problems, such as colitis, constipation, or inflammatory bowel disease, and in cases where people suffer from chronic infections, especially yeast infections such as candida albicans.”
The clinical dietician said probiotics were also beneficial after a course of antibiotics for a period of at least 15 days, as a prevention against food poisoning when travelling to ‘suspect areas’, in women over the age of 45 as the onset of the menopause approached, in people with high cholesterol, in people undergoing radiology, and in women presenting repeated gynaecological or urinary infections.
“Research has also shown probiotic microbes help in the treatment of travellers’ diarrhoea, protect the gut during times of stress and deter the transmission of HIV through breast milk,”
What are Probiotics?
PROBIOTICS are dietary supplements containing potentially beneficial bacteria or yeast, however lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are the most common microbes used. LAB have been used in the food industry for many years, because they are able to convert sugars (including lactose) and other carbohydrates into lactic acid.
Probiotic bacterial cultures are intended to assist the body’s naturally occurring flora within the digestive tract to re-establish themselves. They are sometimes recommended by doctors, and, more frequently, by nutritionists, after a course of antibiotics, or as part of the treatment for candidiasis. Many probiotics are present in natural sources such as lactobacillus in yogurt and sauerkraut. Claims are made that probiotics strengthen the immune system.
The rationale for probiotics is that the body contains a miniature ecology of microbes, collectively known as the gut flora. The number of bacterial types can be thrown out of balance by a wide range of circumstances including the use of antibiotics or other drugs, excess alcohol, stress, disease, exposure to toxic substances, or even the use of antibacterial soap. In cases like these, the bacteria that work well with our bodies may decrease in number, an event which allows harmful competitors to thrive, to the detriment of our health.
(Additional information: Wikipedia)
