About This Research Topic
Probiotics are live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host. Specific strains especially those from Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium have been introduced as probiotics and have been consumed throughout the world. Probiotics can regulate the …
Keywords:Probiotics, prebiotics, mechanism, gut health, microbiota
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What Does The Research Say
Probiotic bacteria used in supplements should have been extensively clinically trialed in human subjects. Always recommend supplements which name the strains of bacteria, not just the species.
In clinical trials, where adverse events are recorded, there were no statistically significant increased adverse events in the probiotic group compared to the placebo group. They both had good tolerability, with few adverse events7,8,3,9.
In a review of 627 studies8 using probiotic agents 235 stated non-specific safety statements such as well tolerated and the remaining 287 reported the presence or absence of specific adverse events .
The conclusion of this review based on the available evidence showed no statistically significant increased risk of the overall number of adverse events associated with short term probiotic use versus control group participants. However, rare adverse events are difficult to assess.
What Are The Most Common Types Of Probiotic Bacteria
Though there are many types of bacteria that can be considered probiotics, there are two specific types of bacteria that are common probiotics found in stores. These include:
- Lactobacillus.
- Bifidobacterium.
Probiotics are also made up of good yeast. The most common type of yeast found in probiotics is:
- Saccharomyces boulardii.
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What Do Probiotics Do
Our bodies are home to a mix of good and bad bacteria. They’re pretty much everywhere the mouth, gut, and skin. Probiotics may help
- improve immune function
- protect against hostile bacteria to prevent infection
- improve digestion and absorption of food and nutrients.
Under normal or “balanced” conditions, friendly bacteria in the gut outnumber the unfriendly ones. Probiotics can act as gut-beneficial bacteria that create a physical barrier against unfriendly bacteria.
Probiotics can also help offset the bacterial imbalance caused by taking antibiotics. Antibiotics kill good bacteria along with the harmful ones, often leading to gas, cramping or diarrhea. Potential benefits of probiotics have been seen in the treatment or prevention of many conditions such as diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, and Crohn’s disease.
Probiotics may help breakdown protein and fat in the digestive tract a valuable benefit to help infants, toddlers or patients who need to build strength throughout and after an illness.
More Tips For Reducing Probiotic Side Effects
For most people, starting a probiotic might bring on some minor symptoms, but theyll dissipate over the course of a few days to a week. Typically, the benefits far outweigh the negative aspects. To help reduce the effects of a probiotic, you can follow these helpful tips:
Switch it up. If youre experiencing a number of side effects, consider trying a different strain to see if your body reacts better to it.
Consistency is key. As with many medicines and supplements, make sure to take your probiotic every day, preferably at the same time. This will help you to see results faster.
Take it alone. To avoid your probiotic fermenting with other foods or causing an adverse reaction, take it first thing in the morning with a glass of water. Dont include it with your morning cup of joe, though, because it can speed up your digestive system and potentially cause diarrhea when the two are taken together.
Dont skimp on fiber. Probiotics feed off of dietary fiber, so make sure youre getting enough throughout the day.
Probiotics are becoming more well-known each day for their ability to treat a variety of problems, including weight problems, digestive issues , urinary tract infections, and even vaginal issues. While there are a number of benefits, before you begin taking a probiotic, you should consult with your doctor and consider any potential side effects. You can then decide if theyre right for you.
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Are Probiotics A Scam
With probiotics, details matter. Its silly to walk into a drugstore, grab a probiotic off the shelf and think its going to do you any good.
Be wary, too, of recommendations made by people who havent consulted the scientific literature. Dont blindly trust a pharmacist, doctor, health-food shop attendant or dietary book, as sadly, most are ill informed, Dr. Reid said.
But if a doctor you trust recommends a particular strain that has been shown in clinical studies to help your condition, or if you have identified a strain that is backed up by solid clinical research and really want to give it a try, then sure, go ahead after double-checking with your doctor first. Dont expect miracles, however.
What Are The Side Effects And Risks Of Probiotics
Supplements play an important role when the diet is not adequate to supply our needs. In the case of probiotics, one’s diet is the ideal source for probiotics. These are live bacteria and need to be carefully monitored, stored, and combined for the health benefits that one would be taking them for. At this time, probiotic supplements are not monitored in the U.S. the way that food or medication is. They fall under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 . This requires that the dietary supplement or dietary ingredient manufacturer be responsible for ensuring that a dietary supplement or ingredient is safe before it is marketed. The only time that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration may get involved is if action is needed to be taken against a manufacturer after the supplement is marketed and then found to be unsafe. This means that as much as we may know about probiotics, we can’t be certain of the safety or content of the supplements available to us.
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Can I Get Probiotics From Food
You can absolutely increase beneficial microbes in your body from the foods you eat. Certain foods have probiotics in them and can benefit the health of your microbiome.
These foods can be introduced into your diet at any point of the day. You may even be regularly eating them now and not realize that they contain probiotics. You will want to check the food label for live and active cultures. A few suggestions for just some of the probiotic-rich foods you can add to your diet and some times to try them include:
For breakfast, try:
- Powders.
- Liquids.
Probiotic supplements may be combined with a prebiotic. Prebiotics are complex carbohydrates that feed the microorganisms in your gut. Basically, prebiotics are the food source for the good bacteria. They help feed the good bacteria and keep it healthy. Prebiotics include inulin, pectin and resistant starches.
When you have a supplement that combines a probiotic and prebiotic, its called a synbiotic.
How Are Probiotics Regulated In The United States
Government regulation of probiotics in the United States is complex. Depending on a probiotic productâs intended use, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration might regulate it as a dietary supplement, a food ingredient, or a drug.
Many probiotics are sold as dietary supplements, which donât require FDA approval before they are marketed. Dietary supplement labels may make claims about how the product affects the structure or function of the body without FDA approval, but they arenât allowed to make health claims, such as saying the supplement lowers your risk of getting a disease, without the FDAâs consent.
If a probiotic is going to be marketed as a drug for treatment of a disease or disorder, it has to meet stricter requirements. It must be proven safe and effective for its intended use through clinical trials and be approved by the FDA before it can be sold.
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Gut Microbiota Composition Before Intervention
The intestinal microbiota of the 58 subjects before the intervention was typical for healthy individuals dominated largely by the phyla Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes , accounting for up to 87.5% of the intestinal microbial communities. Other observed phyla were Actinobacteria , Proteobacteria , Verrucomicrobia , Euryarchaeota , Tenericutes , and Cyanobacteria .
Probiotics Can Help Reduce Symptoms Of Certain Digestive Disorders
Over one million people in the US suffer from inflammatory bowel disease, including ulcerative colitis and Crohns disease .
Certain types of probiotics from the Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus strains have improved symptoms in people with mild ulcerative colitis .
Surprisingly, one study found that supplementing with the probiotic E. coli Nissle was just as effective as drugs in maintaining remission in people with ulcerative colitis (
31 ).
Nevertheless, probiotics may have benefits for other bowel disorders. Early research suggests they may help with symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome .
They have also been shown to reduce the risk of severe necrotizing enterocolitis by 50%. This is a fatal bowel condition that occurs in premature infants .
Bottom Line:
Probiotics may help reduce the symptoms of bowel disorders like ulcerative colitis, IBS and necrotizing enterocolitis.
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Who Shouldnt Take Probiotics
In December 2014, the Food and Drug Administration issued a safety alert to health care providers urging caution in the use of dietary supplements containing live bacteria or yeast in patients who are immunocompromised, citing the death of a premature infant who developed gastrointestinal mucormycosis after receiving an in-hospital treatment of ABC Dophilus Powder that was tainted with the mold Rhizopus oryzae. In the safety alert, the FDA also urges health care providers who use dietary supplements containing live bacteria or yeast as drugs to file an Investigational New Drug Application for FDA review. Submitting an IND would require an FDA review of the content and purity of the product. If you have a compromised immune system, take immunosuppressant drugs, or have a venous catheter, you may be at a greater risk of becoming seriously ill from the live bacteria or yeast found in probiotic supplements, says Surawicz.
Probiotics may also pose a risk for those with certain sensitivities or intolerances, such as to gluten. Researchers at the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University Medical Center found that 12 of the 22 top-selling probiotics had detectable traces of gluten, even though more than half of the 22 were labeled as gluten-free. Saccharomyces boulardii , the second-most widely studied probiotic for use in AAD and C. diff, is a live yeast-based probiotic. Patients sensitive to yeast should talk to their doctor before taking this probiotic.
Study Design And Allocating Animals To Experimental Groups
6week old db/db mice and C57BL/Ks mice using the specific pathogen free grading were purchased from Changzhou cavins experimental animal co. LTD . db/db mice were randomly divided into 4 group by blood glucose and weight as model group, metformin group, and low and high dose CPCM groups after 1week adaptation. The 10 C57BL/Ks mice were selected as normal group. db/db mice were randomly divided into 4 group by blood glucose and weight as model group, metformin group, and low and high dose CPCM groups after 1week adaptation. The 10 C57BL/Ks mice were selected as normal group.
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There Is No Way To Know What Dose You Are Taking
The probiotic supplement market is relatively unregulated, so it’s hard to know how many CFUs we actually are consuming when we take probiotics in pill form. Moreover, it’s difficult to know if the organisms in those probiotics are even still alive and capable of doing their job, or if they’re dead and useless. Even if the bacteria are alive, there’s a question about whether they can survive once inside your gut.
If you are getting your probiotics from foods like store-bought yogurt, there are also very few ways to be sure that you are consuming a significant dose of good bacteria. The conditions that the yogurt is stored in down the supply chain, the temperature of your refrigerator, and the strain of probiotic that the yogurt contains all have a significant effect on the dosage of CFU. Many of the beneficial microbes could have perished before you consume the yogurt.
So What Are The Issues With Probiotics
There is still the question of whether some probiotics stick around long enough in the body to do anything.
In a 2018 study published in Cell, a team of scientists gave Supherbs Bio-25, a mixture of 11 bacterial strains commercially available in Israel, to 10 healthy people for four weeks and found that the probiotics passed right through four of them.
This suggests that in some people, these strains will not have an effect, said Eran Segal,a computational biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and a co-author of the study.
Studies aside, though, the other major problem with probiotics is that they may not contain what they say they do. In the United States, the F.D.A. regulates most probiotics as dietary supplements, which means that their manufacturing and quality-control standards are far less stringent than standards for prescription and over-the-counter drugs.
In a 2016 study, researchers at the University of California-Davis and other institutions used DNA analysis to compare the bacterial strains listed on the labels of 16 commercially available probiotics with what the products actually had in them.
The researchers found that only one of the 16 products contained the strains listed on the label some had entirely different bacterial species. Good quality control matters: In 2014, a premature baby died from what was believed to be mold contamination in a probiotic supplement.
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Side Effects Of Too Much Probiotics How To Deal With
Probiotics are living bacteria that provide health benefits. They can be ingested through natural dietary sources or supplements. There are a few side effects of probiotics that creep up from time to time. Dont despair if you feel these as probiotics are generally very good for you! The side effects of probiotics include gas, migraines and infection risk.
Probiotics include gut-friendly yeasts too. While the benefits are numerous, there could be a few potential side effects too.
However, most of the side effects are caused when the probiotics are not taken as intended or in the correct dosage. It is important to note that there is no FDA approved dosage as yet because of lack of significant research.
The Effects Of Cpcm On Oral Glucose Tolerance Test Glycosylated Hemoglobin C
As displayed in Table Table22 and Fig. 2, the effects of CPCM on oral glucose tolerance test , glycosylated hemoglobin , C-peptide and insulin resistance index in db/db mice were observed at the 6th week of experiment. Model group showed significantly higher OGTT results at 0 , 30 , 60 and 120min than did normal group. Compared with the model group, metformin group showed significantly lower OGTT results at 0 , 30 , 60 and 120min . Low dose probiotic group at 60min and high dose probiotic groups at 0 , 60 and 120min showed significantly lower OGTT results than did model group and the effects of probiotics on OGTT showed a dose-dependent characteristic. At the 6th week, model group showed the highest HbA1c than did any other groups metformin , and low and high dose probiotic groups showed significantly lower HbA1c levels than did model group. At the 6th week, model group showed the lowest CP than did any other groups metformin , and low and high dose probiotic groups showed significantly higher CP levels did model group. We calculated IRI using IRI=1.5+FBG×fasting CP /2800 and compared IRI at the 6th week among groups. IRI was the highest in model group and the lowest in normal group. IRI in metformin , and low and high dose probiotic groups was significantly lower than in model group.
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The Benefits Of Probiotics Bacteria
In a society of anti-bacterial warfare, who would have thought that anyone would tout the benefits of bacteria? Living microorganisms found in yogurt and other cultured foods may help improve your body’s bacterial environment inside and out. They’re called probiotics, a name that means “for life.”
More and more people are using probiotic products to treat or improve illnesses or to maintain overall well-being. In fact, a 2017 report estimated annual global sales of probiotic supplements at $3.7 billion in 2016, and that is expected to rise to $17.4 billion by 2027.
How Do Probiotics Work
The main job of probiotics, or good bacteria, is to maintain a healthy balance in your body. Think of it as keeping your body in neutral. When you are sick, bad bacteria enters your body and increases in number. This knocks your body out of balance. Good bacteria works to fight off the bad bacteria and restore the balance within your body, making you feel better.
Good bacteria keeps you healthy by supporting your immune function and controlling inflammation. Certain types of good bacteria can also:
- Help your body digest food.
- Keep bad bacteria from getting out of control and making you sick.
- Create vitamins.
- Help support the cells that line your gut to prevent bad bacteria that you may have consumed from entering your blood.
- Breakdown and absorb medications.
This balancing act is naturally happening in your body all of the time. You dont actually need to take probiotic supplements to make it happen. Good bacteria is just a natural part of your body. Eating a well-balanced diet rich in fiber every day helps to keep the number of good bacteria at proper levels.
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