Nobody wants to release stomach gas in public and be the source of a horrible foul smell. This type of situation is quite embarrassing and people who have extreme gas may be shy to go in public places knowing that they can inadvertently fart and smell. As such, you might want to find a mean of prevention if you are experiencing excessive flatulence. Fortunately, this is not a curse and solutions are available to eliminate that risk. Probiotics are a good example of something that works well to treat different types of gastrointestinal discomfort, including gas. [Read more…]
Taking Probiotics To Help With Your Fatigue
The relationship between probiotics and fatigue is not straightforward and there are conflicting results found in scientific literature. However, one thing we do know for certain is that the types of bacteria in the gut of those suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are unbalanced, and that plays a role in the pathogenesis of this disease. In fact, even though all the real causes of this disease have not been elucidated yet, dysbiosis, a scientific term referring to the situation where an abnormal population of bacteria has taken over the normal population usually present in the gut of healthy people, has been linked to the chronic fatigue syndrome.
Take Probiotics for a Successful Weight Loss
At the start of each year, millions of people prepare to dedicate themselves to a set of goals that will positively impact their lives. The number one New Year’s resolution is weight loss. Despite having a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips, many people enter the weight loss journey ill prepared. Even worse, others begin to pursue weight loss through means of synthetic substances that feature a long list of potential side effects. If you want to support a healthy, safe, and natural weight loss, there is no better tool to arm yourself with than a reliable probiotic. Elite brands such as Probacto Probiotics can ensure your body rids itself of toxins, pollutants, and excess body fat. Let’s take a look at how a probiotic supplement will help you.
How Probiotics Can Help with Hair Loss
Hair loss is one of the most common, non-threatening medical conditions around the world. Here in the United States, men and women both suffer from this frustrating and embarrassing state of health. For men, Androgenetic Alopecia, or male pattern baldness, is responsible for more than 95% of hair loss. Two thirds of men will go through some level of hair loss by the time they turn 35. 1 Believe it or not, women make up 40% of those suffering from hair loss. One in four women will experience some form of hair loss including thinning. 2 Put simply: Hair loss, while not dangerous, can be emotionally overwhelming.
Although a cure has yet to be found, modern research is revealing how nature can reduce and stop hair loss. Probiotics, the gut-friendly bacteria found in fermented foods such as yogurt and kefir, may be just what you need in order to stop hair loss in its tracks.
Probiotics & Hair Health
Probiotics promote the growth and development of healthy and beneficial bacteria inside of your body. These bacteria live primarily in your gut. The fascinating thing is that 80% of your immune system, your body’s tactical defense system for foreign pathogens and invaders, is also located inside of your gut. Studies are only now discovering the links between probiotics and your immune system. In fact, several studies have demonstrated a direct correlation between the health of your gut flora and the condition of your immune system. 3, 4 [Read more…]
How Probiotics Can Help With Eczema
As suffers of eczema can attest to, this skin disorder ranges from mild to severe. It is an inflammation of the skin that often appears in the form of blisters. These blisters are described as dry, itchy, and scaly. Extreme eczema may result in bleeding due to the scratching of the blisters. As awful as eczema can be, you can rest assured that you will not pass it along to friends and family as it is not contagious. While no cure exists for eczema, studies are revealing more effective ways for treating and preventing outbreaks. One of the best, all-natural ways of treating eczema comes in the form of gut-friendly probiotics.
Let’s take a look at how these amazing strains of bacteria are bringing relief to children and adults that are suffering from eczema.
How Do Probiotics Work?
What many people do not realize is that eczema, while skin-based, is a sign of an immune system that is not functioning properly. What’s more, do you know where the majority of your actual immune system is located? In your stomach! More than three quarters of your total immune system can be found in your gut. Beneficial bacteria also lives in your gut so it should be no surprise that if there is a disruption in the balance of intestinal gut flora, you will see symptoms appear on the outside of your body.
When you encourage a well-balanced and diverse culture of flora through probiotic supplementation, you are enhancing your immune response. Your immune system is better equipped to distinguish what is dangerous such as a pathogen and what is harmless such as an antigen.
Can Probiotics Prevent Eczema?
Probiotics are a highly effective way of preventing and treating the symptoms of eczema. Several age groups have been tested in a number of studies for their reaction to probiotic supplementation with an emphasis on the severity of existing eczema and preventing further outbreaks.
Conception to Birth
- As demonstrated in this study from the British Journal of Dermatology, expecting mothers who supplemented with probiotics during pregnancy and breastfeeding were able to reduce the risk for eczema in their children dramatically.
Infancy to Early Childhood
- According to a study published in the Current Opinion in Allergy and Clinical Immunology, probiotics were shown to be successful at preventing eczema up to the age of two. Children continued to benefit from the probiotics until the age of four.
Childhood to Pre-Teen
- A study from Taiwan published in the British Journal of Dermatology took subjects, ranging in ages from 2 to 14, who all had severe cases of eczema and provided them with probiotic supplementation. After 8 weeks, researchers determined that the probiotic supplements had significantly improved the skin condition of the subjects.
Teenage to Adulthood
- In a ground breaking study published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, adults with a history of eczema and related skin conditions were given probiotic supplements or a placebo for 12 weeks. At the conclusion of the study, the results showed that the adults who had supplemented with probiotics experienced a dramatic improvement in their eczema while the placebo group reports no changes whatsoever!
What Is The Best Probiotic For Eczema?
There’s more to it than suggesting just one probiotic. Every individual is different and gut flora will vary drastically from person to person. Put simply: What works for one person may not work for another. With that said, there are strains of probiotics that have been determined to be the most beneficial across a wide spectrum of people. When shopping for a probiotic supplement, you will want to search for the following features:
- Choose a multi-strain probiotic – At least 5 strains
- Make sure it contains L. Acidophilus
- Other suggested strains to select:
- L. Plantarum
- L. Rhamnosus
- B. Bifidum
One of the best brands that you can buy is Probacto’s Probiotics. You can check out the supplement here.
Probiotics: Cream Vs. Capsule
If you have severe eczema, it would be highly recommended to make a capsule probiotic a part of your daily regimen as well as a topical cream for the worst areas of the breakout. Once the severity lessens, continue with a capsule probiotic supplement to help prevent further breakouts.
Conclusion
You don’t have to continue to suffer and be embarrassed of your eczema. Take an all-natural and scientifically-proven stand against eczema with probiotic supplements.
REFERENCES
1. Dotterud CK1, Storrø O, Johnsen R, Oien T. Probiotics in pregnant women to prevent allergic disease: a randomized, double-blind trial. Br J Dermatol. 2010 Sep;163(3):616-23.
2. Kuitunen M. Probiotics and prebiotics in preventing food allergy and eczema. Curr Opin Allergy Clin Immunol. 2013 Jun;13(3):280-6.
3. Wu KG, Li TH, Peng HJ. Lactobacillus salivarius plus fructo-oligosaccharide is superior to fructo-oligosaccharide alone for treating children with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis: a double-blind, randomized, clinical trial of efficacy and safety. Br J Dermatol. 2012 Jan;166(1):129-36.
4. Iemoli E, Trabattoni D, Parisotto S, Borgonovo L, Toscano M, Rizzardini G, Clerici M, Ricci E, Fusi A, De Vecchi E, Piconi S, Drago L. Probiotics reduce gut microbial translocation and improve adult atopic dermatitis. J Clin Gastroenterol. 2012 Oct;46 Suppl:S33-40. doi: 10.1097/MCG.0b013e31826a8468.
Probiotics: Interventions In Neurodegenerative Diseases
The right treatment to the neurodegenerative diseases has largely eluded the human population for ages. A number of such diseases exist like the Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disorder, Huntington’s disease and other Schizophrenic disorders. Although each of the diseases has got their own set of characteristics but the thing that they have in common is the effect on brain and memory in all of these cases.
The current therapeutic regimens have tried to prevent the complications of these diseases through the inhibition of the disease causing products like aβ-plaque formation in the Huntington’s disease or the replacement of the dopamine cells in the substantia nigra of the mid brain in case of Parkinson’s disorder. However, all these therapies have provided very short term relief from the problems and the long-term benefits are still far away. [Read more…]
Probiotics As Anti-Aging Agents
The last two decades have seen rapid improvements in the field of medical sciences. With the developments in the modern day technologies an increase in the number of aged population has taken place. The human race suffers from a wide array of health disorders that are mainly associated with aging. Some of the important complications with aging are osteoporosis, neurodegenerative diseases, immunological compromised situations and many more. Studies have found that the human diet and lifestyle have major contributory roles to play in the early aging and related complicacies. A good balanced diet, healthy lifestyle habits and the supplementation of probiotics can be employed to increase the lifespan of individuals and render them the property of healthy aging with lessened age associated complications. [Read more…]
Probiotic Bacteria In The Delivery Of Vaccines
The treatment of the infectious and other diseases via the inhibition of their causative agents involves the induction of the immune system through the process of vaccination. An effective and successful outcome with the vaccines is achieved only when they are able to raise the antigen specific acquired responses of the immune system that involves memory.
The major mediators of this form of immunity are the lymphocytes. The B lymphocytes generally deal with the pathogens which are external through the formation of antibodies while the internal pathogens are tackled by the T lymphocytes that involve cytokine producing inflammatory responses.
Besides the classical way of the application of vaccination during which the acquired immunity against the target antigen is stimulated, there is a great deal of interest among the individuals regarding the significance of innate immunity. This form of immunity has been found to be involved with the beneficial microflora of the hosts or the administration of the probiotics. Infact, it has now been established that the early exposure to the gut microbiota in the lives of the neonatals is absolutely necessary for the development of mucosal immunity. Therefore, there are good reasons to believe that the probiotics can be used as effective means of vaccine delivery. [Read more…]
Probiotics In The Regulation Of Cold And Flu
With the onset of the winter season, a large proportion of human beings suffer from symptoms of cold and flu of varied severity while the children being the worst affected among them. The causative agents behind the common cold are generally viruses like Influenza A, Influenza B, etc. The common cold becomes one of the major reasons behind the huge number of work and school absentees that has a tremendous effect on the economy.
The available therapeutic interventions are only but temporarily effective against the diseased state. Moreover, some of the individuals are more prone to cough and cold than others and we often refer to them as the ones with a weak immune system. However, the existing knowledge about the causal agents behind the cold and flu symptoms suggests that these agents are only responsible to make us immuno compromised under the set of conditions as prevalent during the problem.
Therefore, there is a need to search for therapeutic agents that can bolster our immune responses against such seasonal change related attack on our health. Probiotics have been already implicated to be beneficial in a wide variety of human diseases. There are also a lot of data regarding the ability of probiotics in the stimulation of our immunity. Hence, the use of probiotics to inhibit the influenza viruses, bolster immune responses and provide protection against cold and influenza can definitely be contemplated.
Probiotic Intervention:
In one of the first ever studies to find out the effect of probiotic administration (a combination of L. reuteri and Bifidobacterium animalis) on the health of the children, it was found that the incidences of fever was reduced among them. In a clinical trial with 326 children, 248 of them showed reduced incidences as well as duration of fever, cough, antibiotic prescriptions and rhinorrhea upon the intake of probiotic strains. It was also found that the group who were administered with only one probiotic strain was found to interfere with only the incidence of cough and fever. Nonetheless, both the kind of probiotic administration provided some degree of reduction in the duration of the symptoms.
This suggests that a combination of probiotic strains are needed to alleviate the problems associated with the symptoms of cold. The probiotic products like Probacto that has a good blend of the beneficial bacteria can therefore be quite useful in the intervention of such cold related problems. According to yet another study the combinatorial intake of the three probiotic strains, B. longum, L. gasseri and B. bifidum supplemented with minerals and vitamins was demonstrated to result in the reduction of the severity and duration of the common cold. Similar results were observed through the intake of probiotic supplements containing the strains of L. acidophilus and B. animalis. According to a controlled trial with probiotic strains on school children that was published very recently in the journal Pediatric International, it was demonstrated that the daily intake (twice per day) of probiotic supplements reduced cold symptoms in school children.
The effectiveness of the combinatorial intake of probiotic strains as compared to a single strain was once again proved through the comparison between the administrations of L. acidophilus alone or in combination with B. lactis. Obviously, the combinatorial approach seemed to provide protective effect from a broader perspective. Soletti and his group published their recent findings on the efficacy of using synbiotics in the control and prevention of common cold symptoms in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology. Their work suggests that the prolonged period of intake of the synbiotic formulations ( like the use of fructooligosaccharides, inulins and probiotic strains) besides providing protection against the common cold, helps in alleviating respiratory disorders as encountered during the winter season.
Mechanism of Action:
The mechanism of action through which the probiotics might provide beneficial effects during cold seasons and protect from the common cold symptoms including reduced cough and respiratory ailments has to do mainly with the immunomodulatory capabilities of the probiotics. Indeed, a number of reports have associated the probiotics with the enhancement of immune responses in human beings through the Toll-Like receptors. They have also been found to induce the innate immune system through the stimulation and release of a number of cytokines. Winkler et al. has observed very recently that the administration of probiotic combination can enhance cellular immunity in order to effectuate the decrease in cold symptom severity.
As said earlier a single strain probiotic intake was not as effective as the administration of a combination of two strains, i.e., the two strains could produce a synergistic effect. The synergism in part can be explained by the fact that the bifidobacterial strain might be associated with the inhibition of the respiratory viruses in getting adhered to the epithelial layer while the other strain can grow and induce immune responses.
So, the main effect of probiotics in fighting cold symptoms is to stimulate the otherwise weakened immune system to fight out the viruses. However, the mere ability to boost the immune responses might not be considered sufficient to provide health benefits against the virus and that requisite clinical trials are a must before it can be said with confirmation. With the studies available it is highly promising to use the probiotics against the virus mediated respiratory ailments.
There are also suggestions that the use of probiotics as a therapeutic intervention to provide relief in cases of common cold can alleviate the need for medicinal application based relief which are only but transient in nature in their mode of action. Moreover, the probiotic strains have been found to be enhancing the vaccine response in the cold and flu affected individuals.
It is noteworthy to mention that the use of probiotic strains in the inhibition of cold and flu should be quite judicious as the specific strains in these cases have been known to induce specific responses in the recipients. The right choice of the probiotic product with the right combination of the bacterial strains is the key to the success in their use as agents to fight symptoms of cold.