Your doctor prescribes medication to help you feel better. But some medications create new problems. Antibiotics help rid your body of the bacteria that's making you sick, but also may cause abdominal upset, diarrhea and fungal infections. However, you may be able to ward off the ill affects of your antibiotics by taking probiotics, the friendly bacteria found in foods like yogurt.
Antibiotics
Antibiotics, also referred to as antibacterials, are drugs used to treat infections and illnesses caused by bacteria, fungi or parasites. Types of infections include tuberculosis, salmonella and meningitis. Antibiotics work by either killing the bacteria, or preventing it from multiplying. However, in addition to harming the bad bacteria in your body that's making you sick, antibiotics also affect the good bacteria in your body that helps keep you healthy. Probiotics help to restore the good bacteria.
Probiotics
Your gut consists of both healthy and unhealthy bacteria. The healthy bacteria in your body helps you digest food, and make vitamins and essential fatty acids, while the unhealthy could potentially make you sick. Probiotics are substances found in supplements and food that help improve the balance of good bacteria in your body, allowing them to thrive. Probiotics also help you make vitamins, improve your immune health, lower your risk of colon cancer, help you digest lactose in milk and may help improve your blood cholesterol levels.
Antibiotics and Probiotics
One in five people stop taking their antibiotics because of its side effects, namely diarrhea, according to a report in Science Daily. The antibiotics disrupt the balance of healthy bacteria to unhealthy bacteria in your gut, which may exacerbate your symptoms. Taking probiotics when prescribed antibiotics helps lessen the diarrhea, and may help ensure that the full course of medication is taken. In addition, probiotics may help decrease your risk of developing fungal infections following your antibiotic treatment.
Food Sources of Probiotics
While probiotics are available in supplement form, you can also find them in a number of fermented foods, which are foods treated with microorganisms to alter taste and texture, and also improve shelf life. Food sources of probiotics include yogurt, kefir, cottage cheese, buttermilk, sauerkraut, tempeh, miso and soy sauce. Many fermented foods go through a pasteurization process during processing, which kills the healthy bacteria. But many food manufacturers add them back in after pasteurization.
References
- Science Daily; Probiotics May Help People Taking Antibiotics; December 2008
- MayoClinic.com; Probiotics: Important for a Healthy Diet?; Katherine Zeratsky; April 2010
- Medical News Today; What Are Antibiotics? How Do Antibiotics Work?; April 2009
- RD411; Probiotics and Prebiotics; August 2008
- Eden Foundation; Fermented Food -- Safer to Eat; August 1994
