Do Probiotics Kill Bad Bacteria

Common Genera Of Probiotics

The most commonly consumed probiotics are species of two main genera. These genera are also the most studied of probiotics:

Bifidobacteria: This genus of bacteria is commonly used in foods and supplements. Theyre thought to:

• support the immune system
• limit the growth of harmful bacteria in the intestine
• help break down lactose into nutrients the body can use

Lactobacillus: This genus of bacteria produces lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose, or milk sugar. These bacteria also produce lactic acid. Lactic acid helps control the population of bad bacteria. It also serves as muscle fuel and increases the bodys absorption of minerals. Lactobacillus bacteria are found naturally in the:

Antibiotics And Probiotics: How Medications Affect Your Gut

Antibiotics can act as a powerful defensive line against bacterial infections. They’re remarkably effective at killing the harmful bacteria that cause disease. Unfortunately, they also come with a cost.

“Antibiotics play a critical role in fighting bacterial infections,” explains Jasmine Omar, M.D., an internal medicine specialist at Henry Ford Health. “But taking these medications can also lead to adverse reactions including nausea, drug allergies, antibiotic-associated diarrhea and yeast infections.”

Ecoli: Friend And Foe

E. coli has earned a bad name for itself. With good reason: E. coli is one of the most frequent causes of bacterial infections in humans. Enteritis, urinary tract infections, septicaemia and neonatal meningitis are just a few of this bacteriums gifts to mankind .

But the E. coli family is huge, with hundreds of members at present count. Most E. coli strains do not cause disease and naturally live in the gut. E. coli normally colonises an infants gut shortly after birth , adhering to the mucus layer of the colon. Its actually your most common facultative anaerobe . So if you get rid of E. coli, that leaves a big gap to fill.

Apart from opening up vast swathes of real estate in your gut and sending an open invitation to any microbe who might want to set up shop and proliferate, there are other reasons not to nuke E. coli. Commensal strains of the bacteria guard against potentially pathogenic invaders and significantly contribute to the development and training of the immune system in your gut .

E. coli also:

• create metabolic products that support the energy supply of the mucus layer in your colon
• generate short-chain fatty acids
• stimulate motility
• enhance blood circulation in the innermost layers of your colon walls .

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How To Improve Gut Health

A healthy gut flora thats high in friendly bacteria is essential for overall health.

Here are some tips on how to improve your gut flora:

• Eat more prebiotic foods: Eat plenty of foods rich in prebiotic fibers, such as legumes, onions, asparagus, oats, bananas and others.
• Consume more probiotics:Probiotics may increase the abundance of healthy gut bacteria. Fermented foods, such as yogurt, kimchi, kefir and tempeh, are all excellent sources. You could also start taking a probiotic supplement.
• Make time for quality sleep: To improve sleep quality, try cutting out caffeine late in the day, sleeping in complete darkness and making a structured sleep routine so that you go to sleep and wake up at the same time each day.
• Reduce stress: Regular exercise, meditation and deep breathing exercises may help reduce your stress levels. If you regularly feel overwhelmed with stress, you may want to consider seeing a psychologist.
• Eat foods rich in polyphenols: Good sources include blueberries, red wine, dark chocolate and green tea. Polyphenols are not digested very efficiently and often make their way to the colon, where they are digested by bacteria.

Summary:

There are many ways to improve your gut health. Eating a healthy and diverse diet, getting good sleep and reducing stress levels are all great ways to help improve your gut flora.

We Have Turned Our Bacterial World Into A Weapon That Is Being Used Against Us And We Must Correct It Before It Is Too Late

Not Having Enough Good Bacteria Has Consequences

70% of our population has some type of auto-immune disease, and that number is climbing.

99% of everyone walking this earth has some inflammation in the body at any given time.

Bacterial imbalance is why we have disease and infection!

Antibiotics Create Bacterial Imbalance

When you take an antibiotic, the antibiotic is on a mission to kill bacteria – ALL bacteria, good and bad. When your good bacteria is decimated, you have no protective army in your gut to assist your immune system to fight off germy invaders.

It can take up to six months for your body to replenish and repopulate the good, probiotic bacteria you need to keep you healthy!

Cleaning Products Create Bacterial Imbalance

We clean surfaces almost as often as we wash our bodies and clean our teeth. We even use air fresheners to freshen air or to eliminate odor.

Every product you use most likely has some ingredient that kills the good bacteria you need, causing bacterial imbalance in your environment. This directly affects your gut and your immune system, which are directly affected by this imbalance.

The first point of contact you have with bacterial imbalance is external to your body. If you do not balance your personal environment first, you will NEVER balance your gut bacteria!

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When Do You Need Probiotics

There are several different ways your bodys natural microbiome can change and be in dysbiosis or headed in that direction. So many different ways, in fact, that most of us will have this issue at least once in our lifetimes. Some of the most common reasons our bodys good bacteria count changes are:

Taking antibiotics or proton pump inhibitors

Stress

A poor diet or drastic dietary changes

Some short-term illnesses

Chronic disease

One of the most common situations where your doctor will prescribe probiotics is when youre taking a course of antibiotics. Antibiotics do a great job of fighting and killing bacteria in the body. Such a good job, that they also kill the good bacteria. To help you reestablish a healthy amount of good bacteria, doctors often prescribe a probiotic supplement or a daily yogurt snack, as yogurt naturally has a plethora of healthy probiotics.

The problems seem to arise if someone is missing the right bacterial balance in their gut for an extended period of time. When this happens, it can lead to further issues. This is an area of intense research, and new data comes in regularly linking an unhealthy microbiome with health problems.

One of the first areas to be examined and linked to gut health is digestion. It seems evident that intestinal microbiota are important players in IBD. But there are still more studies that need to be done to cement the benefits the microbiome plays in IBD and the role probiotics can have.

Will Taking This Probiotic Along With The Antibiotics Prevent Diarrhea

A systematic review looked at 33 rigorous clinical trials conducted in a pediatric population to assess the impact of different types of probiotics. S. boulardii at doses between 5 and 40 billion colony-forming units was only one of two probiotics effective in reducing the risk of developing diarrhea by 63 percent.

Another systematic review found that S. boulardii reduced the risk of antibiotic-associated diarrhea in adults by 37 percent.

One limitation of this research is that many clinical trials did not assess the incidence of side effects.

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How To Get Rid Of Bad Bacteria In The Gut

We hear a lot about good and bad bacteria these days. Trying every new friendly bacteria food and drink product on the market would be a full-time job. And what about the herbs, teas and plants were told get rid of bad bacteria? If were increasing our friendly bacteria with a yoghurt drink or sauerkraut, why would we then get rid of them by cooking with oreganoan anti-bacterial herbfor example?

It doesnt really make sense, until you dig a bit deeper. Read on to find out why blaming bad bacteria for your symptoms is oversimplifying a very complex situation.

Change The Gut Environment To Get Rid Of Bad Bacteria

Supporting your health foundations, like diet, exercise, and sleep, is the first step toward getting rid of bad bacteria in the gut. If that doesnt solve the problem by itself, then probiotics should be the next step to crowd out harmful bacteria and restabilize the microbiome. Finally, if that doesnt completely solve the issue, antimicrobials or antibiotics can be used to gently clear the unwanted microorganisms from the gut.

The key to a healthy microbiome is making sure the gut is a welcoming, nutritious environment for good bacteria to thrive, and a place where bad bacteria cant. That way youll not only get rid of any bothersome microbes now, youll prevent them from coming back in the future, too.

For more information on gut health, diet, probiotics, and more, check out my book Healthy Gut, Healthy You.

The Ruscio Institute has developed a range of high-quality formulations to help our patients and audience. If youre interested in learning more about these products, please click here. Note that there are many other options available, and we encourage you to research which products may be right for you.

References

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Probiotics Can Help To Prevent Diarrhea

If youre someone that suffers from diarrhea then you may want to consider taking probiotics to help. This good bacteria is well known for helping to prevent and even reduce the severity of diarrhea.

You may have this symptom due to taking a medication such as antibiotics. This is because antibiotics are used to affect the balance of bacteria in the gut and not in a good way.

What Probiotics For Antibiotic Side Effects

Typically, it will take the body time to balance the microbiome to healthy, diverse bacteria levels. In fact, research shows that it takes about 6 months to recover from the damage done by antibiotics. And even then, the body might not even be back to its pre-antibiotic state.

Saccharomyces boulardii, a probiotic yeast is particularly good at preventing and alleviating antibiotic-associated diarrhea and travellers diarrhea. Its also a friend to your gut bacteria that supports good bacteria and prevents inflammation.

Lactobacillus acidophilus, a probiotic bacterium best known for being in yoghurt is also great for your gut. Studies show that its good at treating and preventing infections, and reducing the digestive side effects of antibiotics.

Other bacteria that help recover from antibiotic use include:

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What Are The Best Ways To Restore Gut Health

Its no secret that gut health is a non-negotiable to achieving overall health. Maintaining levels of good bacteria in the gut microbiome can be done through a number of ways, including diet and the use of probiotics.

It starts with your diet. Good bacteria feast on fibers and nutrients in plant foods these are prebiotics and they turn these substances into nutrients that nourish your gut lining and keep your gut biome balanced.

Alternatively, probiotic supplements contain billions of bacteria from one or several bacteria strains that in specific, studied doses have benefits for your health. Here are some of the most famous and well-researched probiotic bacteria and yeasts that you will find in supplements:

What Atlas Biomed says: the microbiome scientists at Atlas highlight that the benefits of probiotics may be temporary for some people, and only last as long as they are taking supplements.

Dental Probiotics For Bad Breath

At BLIS Probiotics, weve focused on oral probiotics since our founding. Our very first discovery, streptococcus salivarius strain K12, naturally occurs in the mouth. Research we conducted found that only a small percentage of people have this specific probiotic strain in large enough quantities to make it useful against bad bacteria.

What makes this strain of bacteria so valuable? It produces Bacteriocin-like Inhibitory Substances . Those substances help prevent the growth of bacteria that cause things like strep throat as well as bad breath.

You shouldnt leave the results of your body producing bacteria up to chance. With so few people naturally producing this probiotic strain in large quantities, the right supplement can make a big difference.

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Probiotics And Fecal Transplants Can Help Restore The Healthy Bacteria That Antibiotics Can Kill Off

Antibiotics can save lives by reining in potentially deadly bacterial infections. But the drugs kill off not only the bad bacteria that make you sick but sometimes also the good bacteria that help keep you healthy. So replenishing the good bugs in your digestive tract seems to make sense. That’s the idea behind two growing trends: probiotics and fecal transplants.

Probiotics Can Help With Allergies

Certain strains of probiotics can help with the severity at which you experience allergies. This can be anything from getting a stuffy nose during pollen season to your year-round case of eczema.

When taking probiotics daily can help to make eczema less severe. When it comes to seasonal allergies, probiotics can be used to lessen inflammation and in turn, make the season more bearable.

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They Can Help You Lose Weight

Have you got pesky belly fat that just doesnt seem to go away? If so, you may need to get your gut health in order to blast it off.

Since some probiotics help to prevent the absorption of fat in the intestine it can help you shed a few pounds and keep off the weight. This is due to the fat not being absorbed is discarded through feces rather than being stored within your body.

These powerful good bacteria can also help your weight loss since they make you feel fuller for longer. In my ground breaking video course, Stop Emotional Eating, I explain how this means you will eat less and have a lower calorie intake.

Probiotics: Fight Bad Bacteria With Good Bacteria

We have found probiotic therapy to be a crucial step for gut healing in our clinic, and probiotics have the research to back them up.

Probiotics have been shown to be equally as effective as antibiotics in treating some kinds of dysbiosis, without the side effects of antibiotic use. A systematic review and meta-analysis including 8,924 patients found that compared with controls, people who took probiotics as part of their H. pylori treatment had higher rates of eradication and lower incidences of total side effects .

Probiotics also help antibiotics/antimicrobials work more effectively. A study featuring 20,215 patients with H. pylori infections found that those who took probiotics alongside antibiotics had better results than patients who only took antibiotics . Another study on 40 SIBO patients found that those taking a combination of S. Boulardii and metronidazole had a success rate of eradicating SIBO more than double that of those taking metronidazole alone .

We recommend Probiotic Triple Therapy to our patients with gut dysbiosis, SIBO, H. Pylori, and other gut infections and imbalances. By combining the three different categories of probiotics Lacto/Bifido blends, Saccharomyces boulardii, and soil-based probiotics weve seen great improvements in our patients gut health.

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Probiotics: Healthy Bacteria For Your Gut

Probiotics are the good bacteria. And they may help lower your risk for several cancers.

Your gut is home to 100 trillion microorganisms or microbes. These gut bacteria some good, some bad play a vital role in your health.

Your intestines hold about 10 pounds of microorganisms. And each person has a unique blend that starts forming at birth, says Erma Levy, a research dietitian in Behavioral Science at MD Anderson. As you grow, where you live and what you eat affect this blend of good and bad bacteria. These gut bacteria some good, some bad play a vital role in your health.

Probiotics are the good bacteria. And they may help lower your risk for several cancers. Probiotics help your immune system function at its best so it can detect and kill cells that can become cancer, Levy says.

Much of the probiotics research focuses on colon cancer, because most microorganisms live in your intestinal tract, she says. And while more research is needed, several studies show that people with colon cancer have an unhealthy population of gut bacteria before the cancer develops.

So how do you keep your gut bacteria healthy?

Feed it a balanced diet.

Your diet sustains your gut bacteria. Were their host. We provide an environment and food. And they help us digest food and convert essential vitamins and nutrients into an absorbable form, Levy says.

Add good bacteria with probiotic foods

Probiotic foods include:

• Low-fat, plain organic yogurt with live or active cultures

Nomenclature Or Whats In A Name

Probiotic bacteria are strain dependent, not species dependentan important distinction. A strain is a type of a bacterial species, similar as to the example below:

Bacterial group = German car = lactic acid bacteria Bacterial genus = Volkswagen = Lactobacillus Bacterial species = VW Golf = Lactobacillus acidophilus Bacterial strain = VW Golf 1.4 D = Lb. acidophilus LC1

Everybody knows that a Volkswagen Golf 1.4 D has other characteristics than a Volkswagen Golf 2.0i turbo, but you cant see the difference on the outside.

The same is true for bacteria they all look the same, but the biological characteristics are different. Hence, claims on health effects of a certain probiotic are only valid for that specific strain, not species.

We are outnumbered.

As many as 1000 and possibly many more different species of bacteria live inside us. When added together, our microbes have ten times the number of cells we have. Their numbers suggest that we, perhaps, exist as their guests.

Probiotics operate in several ways, including:

• competing with pathogens
• stimulating both mucosal and systemic immunity
• metabolizing hormones and carcinogens
• synthesizing vitamins K, pantothenic acid, B6 and biotin, and synthesizing short-chain fatty acids.

There are doubtless other mechanisms which have not yet been identified.

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