Supplementing with Probiotics
You may have heard about probiotics before and aren’t sure if you need to supplement or not. Here’s a few great tips to help enrich your understanding of probiotics.
This amazing guest post was written by my friend + Stu Lieberman the writer for Nutri-Health.com, an online High Quality Supplement and Health Store. Thanks for the great info Stuart!!
For thousands of years, people all over the world have consumed food rich in live friendly bacteria such as kefir, buttermilk, sauerkraut, kim chee, miso, and other foods. Our ancestors knew what modern medicine is rediscovering—that friendly bacteria—also known as probiotics—are of vital importance to maintaining good health and providing relief for digestive problems.
By the time we are two years old, we have a unique colony of bacteria established that’s meant to last our whole lifetime. The problem is that colony of probiotics is being destroyed by our modern lifestyles and medicines, causing an imbalance in our intestinal flora. The result is a host of digestive problems, including gas, diarrhea, and constipation.
Supplementing with probiotics is one of the best natural remedies for constipation and other digestive issues. Taking a probiotics each day helps restore healthy balance to your digestive system and keep it running smoothly. But, with so many options on the market, it’s difficult to know which is the best probiotic supplement to tackle your digestive problems.
When selecting probiotics, here are some things to consider:
Acid and Bile Resistance: To be effective, probiotics must transit the acid and bile of the stomach and reach the small and large intestine. Probiotic supplements use several techniques to accomplish this. Some products are specially coated to protect the live bacteria inside. Be aware, however, that some types of coating are applied at high heat, which may damage the bacteria. Other products use strains that have been developed to be naturally resistant to the acid and bile of the stomach.
Dosage: The potency of probiotics is measured in colony forming units (CFU) or cell count, not by milligrams or weight. There is no published recommended daily dosage for probiotics, though some experts say for digestive health maintenance, eight to 30 billion CFU daily is a good dosage.
Refrigeration: In the past, the best probiotic supplements required refrigeration. However, advances in probiotic encapsulation have led to the development of new technology that surround each cell with a protective coating that keeps the probiotics from deteriorating. These new processes help to keep probiotics self stable up to two years, making refrigeration unnecessary.
Single or multiple strains: Most of the research on probiotics has been with single strains. However, the normal state of our intestinal flora is to have several hundred strains of many types or species of bacteria. Supplementing with multiple strains and types of probiotics more closely duplicates the normal condition of the intestinal tract. In addition, a comparison review of the effectiveness of probiotic supplements concluded that multi-strain and multi-type were more effective than single strain formulas.
This article is written by + Stu Lieberman the writer for Nutri-Health.com, an online High Quality Supplement and Health Store. Assisting people and helping them find quality supplements and health products online is what Stu has been doing for over 2 years. Nutri-Health.com carries Digestive Supplements to Probiotics to Joint Health.
