Vegan Probiotic With Prebiotic Capsules
Vegan Probiotic with Prebiotic Capsules is a 30-capsule supplement that is to be taken as two capsules daily before or with meals. It has about 16 Billion CFUs, meaning that it is highly potent and of good quality. It has Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium lactis, Lactobacillus Reuteri, Bifidobacterium bifidum, Bifidobacterium breve and Bifidobacterium longum, which are clinically studied strains that are clinically approved for consumption. Its other ingredients are purely organic and safe to improve general digestive health, immunity, absorption, reduce constipation and stomach gas.
Are Probiotics Worth Buying
The science on probiotics is promising at best, but there’s just a lot that we don’t know yet. For example, scientists don’t know for sure which specific strains of probiotics are most helpful and how much you actually have to take to see benefits. According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, there are not many in-depth or detailed studies on probiotic safety.
According to Dr. Bulsiewicz, even though probiotic use is widespread and relatively safe, he is uncertain that most supplements actually do what they claim.
“The bottom line is that you want and should expect results from your probiotic. Unfortunately, many do not get results, and are left confused and frustrated that they spent so much money. To increase the odds of success with a probiotic, you should opt for the strain and quantity that has been proven in study to work for whatever medical condition you are trying to address,” Dr. Bulsiewicz says.
The best way to do that is to consult with your doctor and or a dietician or nutritionist to figure out which strains of bacteria may be beneficial to you. That way you aren’t wasting precious time and money taking supplements that may not even target the issue you are hoping to improve.
What To Do With This Information
Before taking a probiotic, talk to your doctor about which specific products would be best for you. Your ideal probiotic will depend on your digestive health, which diseases you do or dont have, your diet and lifestyle, and many other factors. For example, the bacterial strains that work well for someone with constipation-predominant irritable bowel syndrome are likely different than the ones that help someone with Crohns disease. For most people, eating fermented foods and prebiotics can help improve digestive health. Just make sure to take it slowly when adding in these foods by starting small and adding more as you can tolerate, and follow our tips for being a good microbe host.
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What Probiotics For Antibiotic Side Effects
Typically, it will take the body time to balance the microbiome to healthy, diverse bacteria levels. In fact, research shows that it takes about 6 months to recover from the damage done by antibiotics. And even then, the body might not even be back to its pre-antibiotic state.
Saccharomyces boulardii, a probiotic yeast is particularly good at preventing and alleviating antibiotic-associated diarrhea and travellers diarrhea. Its also a friend to your gut bacteria that supports good bacteria and prevents inflammation.
Lactobacillus acidophilus, a probiotic bacterium best known for being in yoghurt is also great for your gut. Studies show that its good at treating and preventing infections, and reducing the digestive side effects of antibiotics.
Other bacteria that help recover from antibiotic use include:
- L. casei
Microbiota Diversity And Health
Lower bacterial diversity has been reproducibly observed in people with inflammatory bowel disease,31 psoriatic arthritis,32 type 1 diabetes,33 atopic eczema,34 coeliac disease,35 obesity,36 type 2 diabetes,37 and arterial stiffness,38 than in healthy controls. In Crohns disease smokers have even lower gut microbiome diversity.39 The association between reduced diversity and disease indicates that a species-rich gut ecosystem is more robust against environmental influences, as functionally related microbes in an intact ecosystem can compensate for the function of other missing species. Consequently, diversity seems to be a generally good indicator of a healthy gut.4041 But recent interventional studies indicate that major increases in dietary fibre can temporarily reduce diversity, as the microbes that digest fibre become specifically enriched, leading to a change in composition and, through competitive interactions, reduced diversity.22
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Take Prebiotics To Feed Beneficial Bacteria
Probiotics are essential, but in order for good bacteria to thrive, they need to eat. Thats why you need prebiotics in your diet. Prebiotics are compounds that feed beneficial gut bacteria. Well-fed, friendly bacteria populate the gut lining, helping to nurture a healthy biome. This helps restore and maintain the integrity of your gut lining.
You can get prebiotics from chicory root, artichokes, leeks, whole grains and foods that are high in resistant starcha type of starch that resists digestion. It ferments in your digestive tract and feeds the beneficial bacteria in your gut. Sources of resistant starch include unroasted cashews, raw green bananas, raw plantain flour and raw potato starch. It can cause digestive distress in some people, so start slow and build up to a few tablespoons.
Heres a simple way to get prebiotics in your diet: Take a prebiotic supplement. Bulletproof InnerFuel Prebiotic contains a diverse blend of plant-based prebiotics to support healthy digestion. It mixes easily in hot or cold liquids, so its an easy daily add-in to coffee, smoothies and shakes.
Probiotic Supplements: Understanding The Label
Probiotic labels can be really difficult to decode if you dont know what youre looking at. If youre browsing probiotics in store, check for two main things:
- Strain of bacteria: This is the first thing you should check. Before you take it, check whether it has been tested in a human clinical trial. You can look up bacterial strains and the corresponding evidence on usprobioticguide.com.
- Number of bacteria: The range in billions of bacteria between different probiotic supplements can seem baffling from 100 million to more than a trillion. More isn’t necessarily better – it depends instead on the dose that has shown demonstrable results in humans.
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How To Get More Probiotics Into Your Diet
Adding a few servings of probiotic-rich foods to your daily diet can be an easy and effective way to give your gut microbiome a boost while also improving overall health and youll find you feel better consuming these foods too.
To get started, try making a few simple swaps in the foods you eat. For example, you can switch out soda, juice or energy drinks for fermented beverages such as kombucha instead. You can also trade regular yogurt for probiotic yogurt and substitute raw milk or cheese in place of regular cheese or milk products as well.
Alternatively, try using a few of the best probiotic foods in your favorite recipes to add a bit of extra flavor and variety to your weekly rotation. Tempeh works well as a meatless main dish, sauerkraut can be served as a savory spread and apple cider vinegar makes a great addition to salad dressings and vinaigrettes.
Regardless of how you choose to get in your daily dose of these natural probiotic foods, the trick is to get creative and dont be afraid to experiment with new ingredients to make healthy and delicious meals.
Restoring Gut Flora After Antibiotics
Antibiotics deplete many bacteria, not just the ones making you sick. Thats why they should only be used under the supervision of a doctor when you really need them.
Antibiotics are an essential means to target bacterial infections. The problem is, weve used them too much and antibiotic resistance is becoming a major problem. Your gut flora isnt keen on them either, and for good reason.
Studies show that antibiotics alter the composition of your gut biome in the long and short term. Thats why some doctors also prescribe a probiotic at the same time. If you do need them, make sure to top up your prebiotic fibre intake to nourish your good bugs, and get a microbiome test to see how you can help them recover.
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How Probiotics Alter The Intestinal Microbiota
In addition to directly affecting the composition of the intestinal microbiota, probiotics may also modulate the global metabolic function of intestinal microbiomes. Fermented milk products containing several probiotics did not alter the composition of intestinal bacterial communities in gnotobiotic mice and monozygotic twins . However, fecal metatranscriptomic analysis of probiotics-treated animals demonstrated significant changes in expression of microbial enzymes, especially enzymes involved in carbohydrate metabolism. Moreover, mass spectrometric analysis of urinary metabolites revealed altered abundance of several carbohydrate metabolites. These observations suggested that probiotics may affect the global metabolic function of the intestinal microbiome.
How To Restore Healthy Gut Flora
So how can you support a healthy microbiome? The Mayo Clinic recommends two ways to care for your gut microbiome health: prebiotics and probiotics. Prebiotics help fuel your naturally occurring gut flora. Probiotics add new living bacteria to your system. A regimen of digestive dietary supplements can help! Eating fermented foods is another way to get probiotics.
Read Also: What Is The Best Doctor Recommended Probiotic
What About Kefir Yoghurt Drinks
As with other fermented foods, kefir a traditional Eastern fermented milk product available as both a drink and yoghurt also has limited clinical evidence behind it. It’s hard to measure exactly what concentration of which bacteria each batch contains.
Kefir products usually contain a broader range of probiotic bacteria than yoghurt-based drinks, though.
As a milk-based product, it can be high in sugar .
Ditch The Standard Western Diet
The evidence for the devastating effect of a processed, high-sugar, low-fibre modern diet on our health continues to mount up. A recent study described our 21st-century diets as an evolutionarily unique selection ground for microbes that can promote diverse forms of inflammatory disease . This means that the bad bacteria in our guts appear to love our deficient diets, while the all-important good ones arent so keen.
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The Best Way To Benefit From Probiotics
You can get probiotics from a variety of foods or supplements.
If you want to buy a probiotic supplement, then there is an with thousands of customer reviews.
Live probiotic cultures are often found in fermented dairy products such as yogurts and milk drinks. Fermented foods like pickled vegetables, tempeh, miso, kefir, kimchi, sauerkraut and soy products may also contain some lactic acid bacteria.
You can also take probiotics as tablets, capsules and powders that contain the bacteria in dried form.
However, be aware that some probiotics can be destroyed by stomach acid before they even reach the gut meaning that you get none of the intended benefits.
If you want to experience any of the health benefits discussed above, its important that you consume adequate amounts.
Most of the studies showing benefits used dosages of 1 billion to 100 billion live organisms or colony-forming units per day.
More about probiotics:
Provitalize Best Weight Natural Weight Management Probiotic
The product is made of six herbal components that enhance its effectiveness in the body. These components include the Lactobacillus gasseri, which boosts the body’s immune function, helps fight allergies and has many other benefits. Bacterium Breeve lowers the overall fat mass, Bacterium Lactis reduces the BMI, total body cholesterol that could lead to cardiac problems, and breaks down low-density lipoproteins. Tumeric root extract helps reduce inflammation, and Moringa leaf is rich in Vitamins E & C, promoting good brain health. Bioperine improves nutrient absorption b 30%, and sunflower lecithin enhances the effectiveness of the formula. e Delayed-release capsules protect the probiotics from stomach acid effects.
The Provitalize capsules work to ease hot flashes that may occur during menopause, manage to bloat, energize the body, improve gut and digestive health, and improve sleep at night. The capsules work effectively to minimize the side effects of menopause in women, leaving you feeling lighter and energized.
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Why Gut Health Matters
Your gutotherwise known as your digestive system or your gastrointestinal system digests the foods you eat, absorbs nutrients from it and uses those nutrients to fuel and maintain your body.
The gut plays a huge role in the health and well-being of our bodies, says Alicia Romano, a specialized clinical dietitian at Tufts Medical Center in Boston and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. In addition to digesting food and absorbing nutrients, the gut is in tight communication with the brain, playing a constant game of telephone and influencing a number of factors, including immune activity, GI muscle contractions and fluid secretion. And the gut is a key player in the bodys immune systemover 70% of your immune cells reside in the gut.
Issues To Be Aware Of
If you’re considering trying probiotics, there are a few issues you need to be aware of.
Probiotics are generally classed as food rather than medicine, which means they don’t go through the rigorous testing medicines do.
Because of the way probiotics are regulated, we can’t always be sure that:
- the product actually contains the bacteria stated on the food label
- the product contains enough bacteria to have an effect
- the bacteria are able to survive long enough to reach your gut
There are many different types of probiotics that may have different effects on the body, and little is known about which types are best.
You may find a particular type of probiotic helps with one problem. But this doesn’t mean it’ll help other problems, or that other types of probiotic will work just as well.
And there’s likely to be a huge difference between the pharmaceutical-grade probiotics that show promise in clinical trials and the yoghurts and supplements sold in shops.
Page last reviewed: 27 November 2018 Next review due: 27 November 2021
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How Probiotics Affect The Microbiota
- 1Service de Médecine Interne Générale, Clinique Saint Pierre, Ottignies, Belgium
- 2Service de Médecine Interne et Maladies Infectieuses, Cliniques Universitaires Saint Luc, UCLouvain, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium
- 3CHU Bordeaux, CRCM Pédiatrique, CIC 1401, Université de Bordeaux, INSERM, CRCTB, U1045, CHU Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France
- 4Institute of Neuroscience and Louvain Drug Research Institute, UCLouvain, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium
- 5Société Scientifique de Médecine Générale, Cellule Nutrition, Brussels, Belgium
- 6Société Royale Belge de Dermatologie, Brussels, Belgium
- 7Service de Psychiatrie, Cliniques Universitaires Saint Luc, UCLouvain, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium
- 8Walloon Excellence in Life Sciences and BIOtechnology, Metabolism and Nutrition Research Group, Louvain Drug Research Institute, UCLouvain, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium
Does It Really Matter When To Take Probiotics Be It Morning Or Evening
That is up for debate. Numerous manufacturers recommend taking probiotics on an empty stomach, while some argue that you should take it with a meal regardless of what time of day it is.
When it comes to the actual science of this, certain probiotics such as Saccharomyces boulardii have been seen to survive in equal numbers under conditions of being taken both with and without food.
Whereas other bacteria such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium do better when taken up to 30 minutes before you have a meal.
It may not matter when you take a probiotic but it does matter how often you take it. By keeping consistent and having a probiotic either at the same time once every morning, or once every night youre keeping the flow of bacteria to your gut constant. In doing so you can help keep your stomach optimized with that healthy bacteria to give you better overall digestive health.
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Probiotic Benefits Extend Beyond The Gut
To prove its health benefit a probiotic supplement needs to be put through a controlled clinical trial, performed on the very same strains in the very same ratio as present in the supplement, because even good bacteria can compete or interfere with each other. Certain strain combinations have been found to improve immune, intestinal, liver, lung, and skin health, as well as healthy glucose metabolism and healthy inflammatory balance. Science-based probiotic supplements have been found to benefit practically every organ system, including the brain.
Are Probiotics Safe And Effective
Probiotics tend to be classed as a food or food supplement, rather than a medicine. This means that they arent regulated in the same strict ways as medicines, and that its not always easy to tell what a product contains.
In the context of a clinical study, probiotics can be an effective treatment for gut problems. In practice, however, a product you find in a health food shop or supermarket may not contain enough bacteria, or the right kind of bacteria to make a difference.
However, as explained on this page, the NHS considers probiotics safe for people with a healthy immune system. If you arent sure whether probiotics are right for you, its a good idea to speak to your GP first.
References
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Can You Take Prebiotics And Probiotics Together
As probiotics grow in use, prebiotics is beginning to get attention as well. Prebiotics come in supplement form but can also be fiber-rich foods that feed good gut bacteria. Probiotics replenish the good bacteria in the gut while prebiotics maintains the gut microbiome by feeding the good bacteria we have in the gut. Because of this relationship between prebiotics and probiotics, it is perfectly acceptable to take them together. However, if your diet already contains healthy, fiber-rich foods then you will likely not require prebiotic supplements.
Prebiotics contain fibers and natural sugars that encourage the growth of essential gut bacteria. They are easy to digest and keep the gut in balance. Prebiotic foods contain fiber and can include bananas, garlic, and dark leafy greens. Probiotic foods contain live cultures and include miso, some yogurts, kimchi, and sauerkraut.
You can learn more in my other article: Prebiotic vs Probiotic: Whats the Difference and Why Are They Important?
