Microorganisms can have both harmful and beneficial effects on human health. In cases when bacteria infect the body and cause disease, antibiotic drugs may be used to kill the bacteria and cure the problem. Your body is also home to helpful bacteria. These microbes inhabit your gastrointestinal system, where they confer numerous health benefits, but antibiotics can kill them, too. Probiotics are sometimes used to replenish your gastrointestinal flora when antibiotics have depleted it.
Origin of Probiotics
The benefits of probiotics were first noted in the early 1900s by Nobel laureate Elie Metchnikov, who linked the long, healthy lives of Bulgarian peasants to the large amounts of yogurt they consumed. Yogurt is created using bacterial cultures, and unless the cultures are destroyed by processes such as pasteurization, they remain live when you consume them. Today, probiotics are added to many foods, and are also available as supplements in capsule, tablet and liquid form.
Benefits of Probiotics
Probiotics protect your gastrointestinal tract by colonizing it with friendly bacteria. When your intestines house a healthy population of probiotic bacteria, harmful pathogens are less able to colonize the area and cause disease. Probiotics that inhabit your digestive systems may be linked to numerous positive gastrointestinal effects, and may reduce susceptibility to infectious disease, inflammation and cancer, according research published in 2006 in "EMBO Reports," the journal of the European Molecular Biology Organization.
Antibiotic Associated Diarrhea
Probiotics may be especially helpful in repopulating the gastrointestinal flora when it has been decimated by antibiotic medication. Antibiotics do not distinguish between helpful and harmful bacteria. Antibiotic-associated diarrhea is a frequent side effect of antibiotic therapy, and probiotics have been suggested as a low-risk method of addressing the disorder. A meta-analysis of the effect of probiotics on the condition was published in the "American Journal of Gastroenterology" in April 2006, and concluded that a variety of probiotic microbes, including the bacterial strain known as Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG and the yeast known as Saccharomyces boulardii, show promise in reducing the occurrence of antibiotic-associated diarrhea.
Considerations
Consult your doctor if you are taking antibiotics and are considering using probiotics as well. The effects of probiotics are strain-specific, meaning certain types of probiotic may not be appropriate for treating symptoms related to the effects of antibiotics.
References
- USProbiotics.org: Probiotic Basics
- "Communicating Current Research and Educational Topics and Trends in Applied Microbiology"; A Mendez Vilas; 2007
- EMBO Reports: The Gut Flora as a Forgotten Organ
- "American Journal of Gastroenterology"; Meta-analysis of Probiotics for the Prevention of Antibiotic Associated Diarrhea and the Treatment of Clostridium Difficile Disease; LV McFarland; 2006
