If you're having trouble with lactose intolerance, antibiotic-associated diarrhea or irritable bowel syndrome, you might want to try eating some bacteria. Then after that, make sure you eat something to feed those bacteria. This may sound crazy, but it's not. Probiotic bacteria, and the prebiotic non-digestible carbohydrates on which they feed, can help humans with common health problems of the digestive system. By consuming products containing probiotics and prebiotics, you may be doing your digestive system a big, healthy favor.
Probiotic Bacteria
People have consumed probiotic bacteria for thousands of years. According to the Dairy Farmers of Canada, it is believed that the consumption of probiotic bacteria began with the Neolithic people of Central Asia, over 6 millennia before the time of Christ. Milk carried in animal stomach pouches by Neolithic herdsmen would curdle to form yogurt. That curdling process was due to the presence of microorganisms that would ferment the milk. However, you don't have to herd goats on the plains of Siberia to reap the benefits of probiotic bacteria. Two probiotic bacteria, Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus are commonly used in the production of yogurt; these bacteria remain live within yogurt and other fermented milk products that are readily available at grocery stores.
Probiotic Yeast
Most probiotics are bacterial in form, but a strain of yeast known as Saccharomyces boulardii can also deliver health benefits when consumed live. Yeast is a type of fungus, and Saccharomyces boulardii is a form of baker's yeast, which is a natural food. According to MedlinePlus, this beneficial microorganism may help treat traveler's diarrhea, antibiotic associated diarrhea, HIV-associated diarrhea, acne and intestinal infection by the bacterium Clostridium difficile; it may also help reduce the side effects of treatment for Helicobacter pylori, the bacteria that causes ulcers.
Prebiotics
Prebiotics are non-digestible carbohydrates; they pass through your digestive system without being broken down by your digestive enzymes. Once these non-digestible carbohydrates pass into your intestines, they serve as a feast for the probiotic bacteria that live there. According to the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics, several factors are necessary to ensure that a substance makes a good prebiotic :It must resist breaking down due to stomach acids, but succumb to breakdown by beneficial intestinal microbes, and it must stimulate the growth and activity of those microbes. Prebiotic non-digestible carbohydrates are found in natural foods such as onions, wheat, artichokes and asparagus.
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