Things You Should Know About Probiotics

by | Apr 16, 2018 | Digestive system | 0 comments

What is your gut instinct telling you about probiotics? Do you need more information? You’re not alone. Over the past decade, dietitians and gastroenterologists have been discovering exciting new findings about probiotics, the gut and health. Here are my top five facts that will help you understand probiotics.

What are probiotics?
Not all good bacteria are probiotics. I’m surprised when I hear health professionals commenting that all yogurt has probiotics. It is important to note that all yogurts have bacteria to make (culture) it; however, not all contain strains (varieties) of probiotics. I believe the best place to start is to define it. According to the World Health Organization, probiotics are live micro-organisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host (you).

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What Our Microbiomes Say About Us

by | Apr 9, 2018 | Digestive system | 0 comments

Researchers estimate the total surface area of the human gut at 3,000 square feet — larger than a tennis court — with the number of microbes in it outnumbering human cells 10 to one.

Though words like “bacteria” and “fungi” might commonly be associated with infections or disease, the ones found in the microbiome are the peacekeepers of your body, helping digest food, fight disease and regulate the immune system.

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Today, researchers at the Center for Microbiome Innovation at the University of California, San Diego are trying to map and understand this crucial component of our health through the American Gut project — a slight misnomer, as the project has collected over 10,000 samples from more than 43 countries.

“There’s more bacteria in your gut than there are stars in the universe, by a long shot,” Rob Knight, the center’s director, said as he stood next to a map of bacteria taken from people all over the globe.

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How Bacteria in Our Gut Can Guide GI Treatment

by | May 21, 2014 | Digestive system | 0 comments

Belly The community of bacteria and other organisms that lives in our intestinal tract — known as the gut microbiome — has co-evolved with us and can be considered asymbiotic partner helping us perform everyday functions, such as eating our lunch. In fact, we wouldn’t be able to properly digest some of the foods we eat without the assistance of these bacteria. The microbiome also plays a role in our body’s immune system and can be manipulated to help fight off infection. For example, we’ve been able to harness these bacteria for the treatment of C. difficile using a treatment called fecal microbiota transplant (which I wrote about in detail here).

Even though greater access to mass DNA sequencing technology and the emergence of bioinformatics has given us the ability to study the four pounds of microorganismsthat make up the microbiome in greater detail, there’s still much more that we can learn about the body’s “unsung organ.”

This week at Digestive Disease Week (DDW), the world’s largest gathering of physicians and researchers in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery, my colleagues and I came together to share new research about the microbiome that can potentially give patients with digestive diseases hope for new treatments.

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Trust Your Gut

by | Apr 29, 2014 | Digestive system | 0 comments

Antibiotics Quick: What do you say when someone tells you that your entire body is covered in bacteria?

A) “Yuck!”

or

B) “Yay!”

If your answer was A, you’re not alone, but your gut would certainly disagree.

That’s because, as Martin J. Blaser, M.D., describes in his new book, Missing Microbes, the bacteria that coat your skin, inhabit your mouth, and fill your intestines are essential to your health and well-being. They protect you from harmful pathogens, help digest your food, produce vitamins, and fine-tune your immune system.

Unfortunately, Blaser explains, we have not been giving these essential partners the respect they deserve. For the past 75 years we’ve been bombarding them with antibiotics without realizing that when we were shooting at the bad guys, we were also hurting the good guys. And the rising incidence of chronic conditions from obesity to asthma to allergies may be the price we are paying.

The trillions of microbes that make their home on the human body — known as the human microbiome — are not a random collection of bacterial passersby. Instead, the particular kinds of bacteria, the sites of the body they occupy, and the functions they carry out are the result of hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary selection. All the life forms we see around us — plants, insects, mushrooms, fish, mammals — evolved on a planet where life was entirely microbial for billions of years. We may think of evolution as a process of “higher” life forms leaving these “primitive” organisms behind, but in fact, every multicellular organism has a group of microbial partners that provide it with various selective advantages. There are a million wonderful stories to tell about these microbial partnerships, but Blaser’s book focuses on the one between humans and our microbiome, and the unintended consequences of one of humanity’s greatest inventions: antibiotics.

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Want Optimal Health? Time for a Gut Check

by | Mar 17, 2014 | Digestive system, General Health | 0 comments

Weight Loss I have a little secret to share with you. It’s not normal to constantly have gas, bloating, burning, or stomach pain. Yet Americans pour billions and billions of their hard earned dollars down their gullets in the form of over-the-counter and prescription drugs aimed at easing digestive distress. Although the unruly actions of the digestive tract are not topics of cocktail party or dinnertime conversation, there are droves of people who suffer from these types of issues. Hippocrates, ancient philosopher and physician credited as being the father of medicine, cautioned that all disease begins in the gut. There is much to be said for improving general health as you take steps to reduce your digestive distress.

Why would Hippocrates say such a thing? His wisdom intuited what modern research has teased out. The digestive system interacts with every single system, organ and cell in the body, acting like Central Station. It has direct links to the immune, the central nervous and endocrine (hormonal) systems, and is the avenue through which nutrition is taken in, broken down, absorbed, assimilated and incorporated into our bodies. Without the digestive system working in top notch condition, reaching optimal health is difficult.

While the drugs that we so readily consume to ease our gastrointestinal tracts may quell symptoms in the short-term, they fall short at getting to the actual root of the problem. In some cases, may actually exacerbate the underlying issues as well as be detrimental to overall health.

In order to kick gut problems to the curb for good, I invite you to do an experiment — with yourself as the subject — to find the root cause and get rid of your symptoms once and for all. These steps, done in conjunction, will put you on the path to both digestive nirvana and better overall health: Click here

Probiotics Are Becoming More In Vogue

by | Feb 19, 2014 | Digestive system, Vitamins & Supplements | 0 comments

Pills Fewer people are taking fish oil, vitamin C and calcium supplements, according to a recent survey of dietary supplement users.

The survey, conducted by Consumerlab.com, also showed that the number of people using probiotics has increased.

“The changes in supplement use seem to reflect research findings that made headlines this past year, as well as a shift in promotional emphasis for some of these supplements,” Dr. Tod Cooperman, M.D., the president of ConsumerLab.com, said in a statement.

“In the past, probiotics were marketed mainly to women and for irritable bowel syndrome, but are now finding a wider audience due to expanded treatment applications, including antibiotic-related diarrhea, diverticular disease and even anxiety,” Cooperman said. “Meanwhile, too much calcium has been shown to pose increased risk of cardiovascular disease, while high-dose vitamin C appears to increase the risk of kidney stones and cataracts. The benefits of fish oil now seem largely limited to people who don’t eat fish or have high triglycerides.”

The survey included more than 10,000 people, and respondents were all classified as “heavy” users of supplements (taking 6.6 supplements a day, on average).

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