One of the key supplements that most practitioners will advise for you to take with gut problems is probiotics. But why and what are they?
The gut is made of gut flora – bacteria both good and bad. The aim is to always have these bacteria working in harmony together. Unfortunately due to the age we live in and various factors such as the processed foods we come in contact with, medications, stress, the list goes on, means all our good bugs are not being topped up, they are just being depleted by the bad bugs. Severe stomach bugs such as diarrhoea and sickness in some cases can impact your gut flora whereby the bad bugs override the good bugs and can actually be the root cause for a lot of people of where their IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) symptoms begin.
One thing to note before going into details about probiotics is the relationship between prebiotics and probiotics, many people have many theories on both of these. A prebiotic is a fibre that fertilises the good bacteria. Many people say it is like laying the seeds in your garden – you take the prebiotics to lay the foundations for the good bacteria to form in your gut with the probiotics.
Probiotics are a form of good bacteria and they come in various strains and strengths from supplementation. If you have ever been in a health food shop you will see there are various strains of bacterias you can buy which all do various things. Once you seek the advice on what strains are best for you it then comes down to choosing the strength you will see some say ‘2 million’ or ’10 million’, the probiotics I take even go into the billions. It can be a mind field, therefore I would recommend before taking any probiotics seeing a dietician, nutritionist, doctor or healthcare practitioner to go through your symptoms, this will save you time and a lot of money taking the wrong supplements for your problem.
But if you fancy saving yourself all the hassle of supplementing probiotics there are particular foods that are known to have natural live probiotics within them, some of these are:
Yoghurt with active and live cultures
Kefir
Sauerkraut
Kimchi
Tempeh
Miso
Kombucha
Pickles
For anyone wondering what probiotics I take, they are VSL3 probiotics but as I said previously it is all very personal to what symptoms you are having and what your body needs to heal.
Does any of my readers take probiotics regularly and what are your experiences of them? Which probiotics work best for you?
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