Cobiotics and Gut Health

Probiotics are like the opposite of antibiotics. Antibiotics are designed to kill off unwanted pathogenic bacteria. Probiotics are meant to replace the bacteria that we normally have in our bodies…the “normal flora.”1 When people talk about probiotics they are usually referring to a few different varieties.

There is a lot of interest in using probiotics for diseases that might be caused by depletion or alteration of the normal flora. The normal flora plays an important role in protecting the body from invasion by pathogenic bacteria. When the normal flora is disrupted, pathogenic bacteria are more likely to colonise and cause disease. That’s where probiotics come in. Probiotics are thought to help replenish the normal flora and prevent pathogenic bacteria from colonising (increasing in number).¹

Probiotics seem to work against infection in three ways:¹

1. Competitive inhibition: probiotics effectively stop disease-causing bacteria from attaching to the lining of the digestive tract (the mucosa). In this way, the bacteria are not able to multiply and cause disease.¹

2. Bactericidal effects: lactic acid-producing probiotics such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria are bactericidal, meaning that they kill bacteria.¹

3. Immune system stimulation:probiotics seem to boost immunity. Lactobacillus and other probiotics seem to increase the production of antibodies that fight the disease-causing bacteria, thereby stimulating immunity to those bacteria.¹

1. Antibiotic-associated diarrhoea: Research on probiotics overall is largely positive for reducing the risk of diarrhoea related to antibiotic use. Analyses of evidence show that adults and children who take a probiotic along with antibiotics have a reduced risk of diarrhoea by 42% to 47%.² Both the Lactobacillus species of probiotics and the Bifidobacterium species (including the Bifidobacterium longum strain specifically) display the ability to reduce the risk of this type of diarrhoea.²
2. Rotaviral diarrhoea: The Lactobacillus rhamnosus strain of probiotic has been shown to reduce the duration of the diarrhoeal phase of the rotavirus infection by one to three days in infants and young children.²

3. General gastrointestinal health: Probiotics are also commonly used for general gastrointestinal health, to maintain regularity, or for their general immunomodulating effects.²They have a very good safety profile in people who are healthy and not immunocompromised.²