Prebiotics And Probiotics Health Benefits: How They Enhance Your Body
Mukta Agrawal
You’ve almost heard about prebiotics and probiotics, but do you know what they are and how they are useful?
Prebiotics and probiotics represent essential aspects of a wholesome, nourishing diet. Though not the same, prebiotics and probiotics complement one another, they can work together to improve overall health and also wellness.
Generally, prebiotic assists you increase in some beneficial bacteria while probiotics contain live beneficial bacteria which can help to recolonize your intestinal flora.
Both prebiotics and probiotics work in harmony with one another. A diet was deficient in either prebiotics or probiotics may severely collision your health and immune function in particular.
What Are Prebiotics?
Prebiotics assists the growth and proliferation of useful bacteria in the digestive system. Unlike probiotics, which are live organisms, prebiotics are components of food that are not otherwise easily digested by humans and these food components essentially feed beneficial bacteria in your gut.
Oligosaccharides such as oligofructose are carbohydrates, and inulin are only partially digested by humans, and the remaining components of these carbohydrate molecules feed useful bacteria.
As inulin and other prebiotics are not well-digested by the body, foods which are rich in these components do not cause significant rises in your blood sugar; moreover, prebiotics like inulin may increase your body’s ability to better absorb iron from the foods you eat.
Traditional diets typically contained over twice the amount of inulin. Essentially, humans throughout history ate foods rich in prebiotics than they do today. Tubers, greens, and other green plant foods offer a miracle source of prebiotics.
What Are Probiotics?
As differentiated from prebiotics which feeds useful bacteria themselves, probiotics in foods or supplements which consists live, beneficial microorganisms. Probiotics, when consumed properly, aid to recolonize the digestive tract with friendly, beneficial bacteria.
Beneficial bacteria are essential to health; indeed, without them, you’d die. Seriously. Useful bacteria helps your body to synthesize vitamins, absorb nutrients, keeps pathogens at bay and they communicate directly with your immune system for your overall health.
While everyone’s digestive tract plays host to beneficial bacteria, antibiotics and poor eating habits including diets deficient in prebiotics can kill off and inhibit the proliferation of this friendly intestinal microflora. For this reason, it’s essential to take probiotics either as whole foods or as supplements.
Consuming probiotic foods or supplements will aid to recolonize your digestive tract’s natural flora and encourage their proliferation. This act is certainly essential if you’ve come off a round of antibiotics. Remember: antibiotics kill the good guys too.
What Are The Health Benefits Of Probiotics?
Probiotics Are “Friendly” Bacteria Which Keeps Your Body Healthy
Probiotics are living good bacteria that stay alive in your intestine after being consumed. These useful microscopic organisms work hard to alter the overall intestinal environment to a favorable one by crowding out bad bacteria such as viruses that might otherwise dominate and harm health.
Even though they are bacteria, probiotics help protect your body from infection. Probiotics can also stimulate and work with your immune system to improve your health and prevent, or even treat, certain diseases.
Probiotics Help With Digestion And Nutrient Absorption
Probiotics permit important health by encouraging nutrients to be absorbed that otherwise would not have been able to cross the intestinal wall into the circulatory system. In fact, the exhaustion of “friendly” probiotics can lead to nutrient depletion and consequently inferior health; if your body can’t use the nutrient-dense foods you eat, it’s just as bad as not swallowing them in the first place.
The regular consumption of probiotics will aid your body to properly digest, process and use the food you eat. Probiotic foods or in the form of organic supplement consumption also increases the bio-availability of minerals, especially calcium.
Probiotics Aids To Detoxify And Cleanse Your Overall Body
Generally, Probiotics are well known to support liver function and detoxification. These “friendly” bacteria filter toxins in the stomach before they get into the bloodstream. The existence of probiotics speeds up the transfer time of toxic waste in your colon, thus avoiding toxins from staying in your body and being reabsorbed in your bloodstream. Probiotics in the form of probiotics tablets helps alot.
How Probiotics Are Powerful At Treating Infectious Diarrhea?
As you all know that Probiotics are very effective at preventing and treating traveler’s diarrhea and problems caused by the bacteria Helicobacter pylori, a major cause of gastritis and stomach ulcers.
Probiotics are also effective at maintaining remission of disease in persons with ulcerative colitis. Other gastrointestinal conditions thought to be helped include c. difficile colitis, a deadly disease caused by antibiotic use, Crohn’s disease, and also irritable bowel syndrome.
Is Prebiotics and Probiotics Useful For Dental Conditions?
Probiotics very have useful as regards to dental conditions, including gingivitis and the development of dental disease.
The consumption of probiotics is then even linked to an improvement in halitosis (which is also called as bad breath.)
Probiotics Are Very Useful For Infants And Young Children
There is good evidence that probiotics cut dramatically, by about 50%, the risk of an infant or young child developing eczema, allergic rhinitis (nasal allergies), or asthma. They have also been proven to treat, and often cure, allergic dermatitis (skin disease) in children.
Probiotics Can Aid Prevent Infections
In adults, these probiotics can avoid infections of the ears, nose, and throat, and the urinary and respiratory systems.
There may be advantages in preventing cancers of the colon and bladder and even helping with the management of diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.
What Are The Health Benefits Of Prebiotics?
The main advantages of this prebiotics include improved immunity, increased bone density, better gut health, weight loss, and lower inflammation among others due to its important properties.
For Gut Health
With prebiotics in the form of foods or supplements, your gut bacteria can digest previously indigestible foods, which can also produce fatty acids which protect the lining of the intestines. Furthermore, ensuring a healthy bacterial balance lowers your risk of irritable bowel syndrome, leaky gut syndrome and also other common stomach issues.
For Healthy Immune System
Greater than 50% of the immune system activity in your body occurs in the gut, and these bacteria-boosting properties of prebiotics can protect your gut against pathogens and potential toxins you may ingest in your food, relieving the strain on the rest of the immune system.
Probiotics For Heart Disease
Generally, prebiotics is linked in decreasing overall cholesterol levels and blood pressure, while the antioxidant effects of prebiotics can secure the integrity of blood vessels and arteries, thus decreasing your chances of developing coronary or ischemic heart disease.
Helps In Bone Density
Many foods which are high in prebiotics are also high in minerals, which are important for avoiding bone mineral loss and osteoporosis as we age.
Does Probiotics Weight Loss Is Useful?
Many of them generally use these nutritional elements i.e. prebiotics to help in weight loss, primarily because they usually vary forms of fiber. This can bulk up the stool and enhance the feelings of fullness, which can reduce snacking and overeating.
Helps In Mood Swings
Although the stomach seems very far away from the brain, a healthy gut means normalized hormonal levels. In turn, prebiotics can control mood swings and symptoms of anxiety, as well as other hormonal processes in the body.
For Inflammation
By modulating the metabolism, this powerful prebiotic foods or supplements can aid to regulate the inflammatory response in the body, thus helping those with rheumatoid arthritis, gout, headaches and also other chronic inflammatory conditions.
There are many prebiotics foods in our day to day life
Food sources that contain prebiotics are
Onions
Leeks
Radishes
Carrots
Coconut Meat & Flour
Flax and Chia Seeds
Tomatoes
Bananas
Garlic
Chicory Root
Dandelion Greens
Jerusalem Artichoke
Jicama
Asparagus
Yams.
If you consume all these above foods regularly in your diet, you can decrease the number of health disorders and especially improve your gut health.
There are many probiotics foods in our day to day life.
Below are the examples of food sources that contain probiotics –
Dark Chocolate
Greek Yogurt
Green Peas
Sauerkraut
Kombucha
Kimchi
Beer & Wine
Green Olives
Natto
Kefir
Pickles
Miso
Sourdough Bread
Beet Kvass
Cottage Cheese
Tempeh
Soft, Aged Cheese.
How Does Prebiotics Help?
Over the years, anyone in the medical profession hardly paid any attention to the role the colon plays in overall health, but over the past 15 years, it has been discovered that the colon — and especially, the bacteria that the colon houses — is incredibly indispensable to wellness.
The bowel wall is strengthened by the healthy bacteria that live there which has a range of essential benefits to improve mineral absorption and aid in the regulation of hormone production.
Prebiotics stifle the production of the disease-causing bad bacteria and fertilize these good bacteria. Prebiotic fiber is single-handedly shown to combat gut dysbiosis by multiplying the beneficial bacteria.
You can experience overall better health from a physical, mental and emotional standpoint when you have ample of beneficial bacteria. You’ll be able to achieve and maintain a healthy weight, feel fuller, and better nourished more effortlessly.
Can You Take Probiotics And Prebiotics Together?
Yes, both the probiotics and prebiotics can be taken together as prebiotics do not interact negatively with probiotics nor do they mess with medications. High-quality probiotics and prebiotics are a safer option if they are taken together.
In fact, it makes sense to take probiotics and prebiotics together to know how they work. In other words, prebiotics is “food” for probiotics. In a way, probiotics and prebiotics act synergistically for gut health as they use the molecules as energy when probiotics digest prebiotics.
Everyone will get a doubt that how much duration i can consume these foods or supplements.
The correct duration of using probiotics is as difficult a question to answer as which forms you should use for specific ailments. Regular use for one to two weeks may enhance infectious or antibiotic-related diarrhoea and improves your overall health.
That most of the probiotics do not permanently adhere in the intestine. Therefore regular consumption is the best way to maintain effective amounts.
The short answer of the duration of use is “indefinitely.” The specific answer lies in a conversation between you and your doctor since you should consult a nutritionist.
When Is the Best Time To Consume Prebiotics and Probiotics?
It is best to take prebiotics and probiotics consistently by following the recommendations for each one of them and take them at the same time regularly every day.
It does not matter whether prebiotics should be taken before probiotics or not as per some sources suggestion.
Know the difference between prebiotics and probiotics. The body processing rates for prebiotics and probiotics are different. The prebiotics and probiotics may take hours to make their way to the large intestine and most probiotics never at all make it to the large intestine and die in the stomach acid before as they may not travel via the intestines at the same rate.
Taking efforts to precisely scheduling the best time to take prebiotics and probiotics hand in hand is rather pointless. The best thing is the bacteria in the large intestine readily digests prebiotics once they arrive.
Above all are the pre and probiotic capsules uses, supplementing with both probiotics and prebiotics can be more helpful, but it is important to understand that probiotics, especially as supplements, are fragile.
Also, since many numbers of types of pre and probiotics are available, it is hard to determine which strains are useful for our unique systems. You can take help of reputed nutritionist for best pre and probiotic supplement.