Tag Archives: probiotics

The Probiotic Prescription

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The Probiotic Prescription

Probiotics: Listen To Your Gut

November 08, 2013

Let’s start with the facts behind what probiotics are. The root of the word probiotic comes from the Greek word pro, meaning “promoting” and biotic, meaning “life.” The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) defines probiotics as “live microorganisms, which, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host.” Yes, they are actually alive, and most of these microorganisms are bacteria. Most people think of antibiotics and antibacterial products when you mention bacteria. Both of those kill bacteria so why would you want to consume anything that has live bacteria in it? It’s all about balance.

Increasing the number of good bacteria in the GI tract by taking probiotics supplements Probiotics Supplementsand eating foods that contain the “good bacteria” may help combat a number of health problems, a growing number of scientists say. New research indicates that specialized strains of these good bacteria could also help alleviate some mood and anxiety disorders.

When University of Toronto researchers gave chronic fatigue syndrome sufferers three daily doses of a Lactobacillus strain for two months, it boosted their levels of good bacteria. “At the same time, we reduced their anxiety,” says lead researcher A. Venket Rao, PhD. When the patients stopped taking the probiotic, their symptoms reverted as well, he says.

Probiotics from YogurtOur stressed-out lifestyle may be our stomach’s biggest enemy. According to María Gloria Domínguez Bello, PhD, a professor of microbiology at the University of Puerto Rico, society’s hectic pace, which leads to our reliance on junk food and overuse of anti­biotics, is throwing our internal ecosystem out of whack; she believes that there’s a link between our gut bacteria and the rise of food allergies and autoimmune diseases — Crohn’s Disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis among many others — in the industrialized world. “When there is a loss of balance in the different types of intestinal bacteria, they send signals to our immune system to overreact and become inflamed, leading to disease,” Domínguez Bello says.

See, when it comes to mood, it’s not all in your head — it’s in your gut, too. “The brain influences the digestive tract and vice versa,” says Rebekah Gross, MD, a clinical gastroenterologist at NYU Langone Medical Center. In fact, new research has found that our esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and colon have a big say in how our minds and bodies function and how happy we feel. “The gut is a critical group of organs that we need to start paying more attention to,” says Steven Lamm, MD, the author of No Guts, No Glory. “Doing so may be the secret to improving our overall wellness.”

ProbioticsIf it seems as if your stomach sometimes has a mind of its own, that’s because it does. The gut’s lining houses an independent network of hundreds of millions of neurons — more than the spinal cord has — called the enteric nervous system. It’s so complex and influential that scientists refer to it as “the second brain.” In addition to being in charge of the digestive process, your gut lining is the core of your body’s immune system and defends you against such foreign invaders as viruses and bacteria.

Cells in the gut lining also produce 95 percent of the serotonin in our bodies. (The rest occurs in the brain, where the hormone regulates happiness and mood.) In the gut, serotonin has a range of functions, including stimulating nerve-cell growth and alerting the immune system to germs.

Thanks to serotonin, the gut and the brain are in constant contact with each other. Chemical messages race back and forth between the brain’s central nervous system and the gut’s enteric nervous system. When we’re stressed, scared, or nervous, our brain notifies our gut, and our stomach starts to churn in response. When our digestive system is upset, our gut alerts our brain that there’s a problem even before we begin to feel the symptoms. Scientists suspect that our moods are negatively affected as a result. “The gut is sending messages that can make the brain anxious,” Dr. Gershon explains.

When the digestive tract is healthy, it filters out and eliminates things that can damage it, such as harmful bacteria, toxins, chemicals, and other waste products.

Although more research is needed, there’s encouraging evidence that probiotics may help:

  • Treat diarrhea, especially following treatment with certain antibiotics
  • Prevent and treat vaginal yeast infections and urinary tract infections
  • Treat irritable bowel syndrome
  • Reduce bladder cancer recurrence
  • Speed treatment of certain intestinal infections
  • Prevent and treat eczema in children
  • Prevent or reduce the severity of colds and flu

Side effects are rare, and most healthy adults can safely add foods that contain probiotics to their diet.

Probiotics and Weight Loss

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Probiotics and Weight Loss: How Digestive Baceria Can Actually Help People Lose Weight
By: Pamela Egan, NP-C, CDE, ABAAHP

When supplement marketers attempt to explain to the public the value of probiotics, the discussion typically centers around the fact that probiotics can help to establish a regular pattern of bowel movements, helping to relieve diarrhea, curb constipation and establish a happy medium that constitutes something of a middle-ground – that point when bowel movements occur neither too frequently nor too infrequently, with the consistency being neither too hard nor too soft, minimizing the amount of discomfort one experiences in using the facilities.

Another benefit of probiotics, the good bacterial flora long associated with natural, unprocessed yogurt, with which the public is well familiar is the strengthened immune system that typically accompanies a healthy gut. However, a less noted side-effect of one’s digestive system functioning at peak performance is that a healthy gut can actually help one lose weight and keep off the pounds.

Antibiotics wipe out the good bacterial flora in the gut (intestinal tract) which slows down the metabolism, resulting in fewer calories burned relative to the amount of calories ingested. This results in unnatural weight gain.

In addition, the animals are fed estrogen supplements, which causes them to develop a condition known as estrogen dominance, which also brings about a hefty degree of unnatural weight gain. Hence, hormone balance is essential for weight loss, as is metabolic efficiency.

With regard to the latter, there is actually a quite simple solution for humans who have either been on antibiotics, ingested them indirectly via other food sources (such as beef) or for whatever other reason have an imbalance of intestinal flora inside the digestive tract. High-quality probiotics can actually help to restore the balance of what are often referred to as “good bacteria”. This helps aide digestion, which when combined with routine exercise and at least a somewhat healthy diet results in an enhanced rate-of-metabolism.

This enhanced metabolism typically helps bring about weight loss in overweight individuals provided the average amount of caloric intake were to remain constant from the time period prior to the balancing of intestinal flora to the point at which optimal bacterial flora levels are reached.

The math is really pretty simple: Calories, excess amounts of which are stored as fat, are ingested as food and calorie-containing beverages. Calories also power the human body (as well as all other animal life). The amount of calories stored as fat depends upon a couple of factors: 1) The amount of calories ingested; 2) The rate at which the calories are being burned as fuel; and 3) The amount of time unburned calories remain inside the body prior to being expelled in the form of waste (feces). By reducing the amount of time calories remain in the body from the time they are consumed to the time they are expelled, there is less time for them to be absorbed and stored in the form of fat.

The bottom line is that while probiotics are far from a miracle dietary supplement that will make you lose weight just by taking a little capsule, in conjunction with exercise, diet and hormonal balance, these healthy, all-natural bacteria can indeed help accelerate weight loss by regularing the digestive system, preventing constipation and helping one expel waste in a timely manner relative to the time-of-consumption.

The result is this: probiotics are not magic weight loss solution, but when implemented as part of a complete weight loss regimen that addresses all aspects of the metabolic cycle (caloric intake, rate-of-metabolism, hormonal balance and proper digestive function), can indeed help an overweight individual with poor digestive health lose weight and keep it off.

Related: Health Benefits of Probiotics

Top Causes of Female Weight Gain – Part 1

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Female Weight Gain: Why Women Gain Weight as They Age

Nurse Practitioner Pamela Egan discusses the top reasons women tend to see their weight increase along with age.

Dear Pam, What Are the Top Reasons Women Gain Weight as We Age?

Weight gain as women age is a multi-factorial process. As women age, we develop several metabolic imbalances such as a slow metabolism, insulin resistance, leptin resistance, hormone imbalances, thyroid disease, etc. For example, several factors influence our metabolism such as exercise both aerobic and weight bearing. Many women develop sedentary habits which leads to muscle loss hence a slowed metabolism.

Most women have to cut way down on carbohydrate and sugar intake as they approach peri-menopause and menopause. I explain to my patients to look at it like its an allergy. They have become allergic to carbs and sugars. If they keep eating these foods, they will need more and more insulin to push the glucose into the muscle. Insulin is a fat storing hormone, so the higher the insulin level the more fat will be stored. As a Certified Diabetes Educator, I offer several low carb diets that help to reverse insulin resistance in my clinic. (Ideal Protein & Prescript Fit).

Many women go through life iron deficient. We routinely check ferritin levels which optimally should be 60 – 100. When a woman is low in iron she craves pica. In the old days iron deficient women would eat mud and starch that you starch your clothes with. Today, we are surrounded by carbohydrates. So we grab bread or a cookie. Once iron levels are restored to normal levels, women very often find that those cravings go away.

Food allergies are also huge factor in female weight gain. Many women have wheat allergies or celiac disease and don’t know it. Once recognized, and those offending foods avoided, the excess weight melts off.

Gut health is also an important factor that can affect weight gain or loss. Balancing the gut and restoring good bacterial flora naturally increases metabolism and help eliminate toxins. One way to help go about this is to take a high-quality probiotics supplement.

If a woman is balanced hormonally but is still not losing weight, a GI Detox followed by a Liver Detox is recommended.

Inflammation is at the root of all disease and can also be a factor in failure to lose weight. We strive to eliminate inflammation in the body which is why high quality antioxidants are included in our daily Essential Nutrition Pack.

Vitamin D3 and Probiotics Can Help Fight Acne

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Vitamin D3, Probiotics are Powerful, Natural Acne Remedies

Acne can result from such factors as hormonal disharmony, bacterial overgrowth, improper eating habits, chronic constipation, heredity and excess oil in the body. Although often overlooked, a direct link exists between Vitamin D and the skin.

Who would have ever thought that Acne was related to an imbalance of flora in the gut or a low Vitamin D level?

If you don’t know me by now, I try to find the cause of symptoms and disease rather than prescribing synthetic medications to cover up symptoms, especially complex acne medications like antibiotics, steroids, and accutane.

Accutane has been linked to Chron’s Disease. Not only does this drug dry up the face, it dries up the whole body. Many times once antibiotics are stopped, acne comes back raging. Sometimes, we just need to take a step back and look at natural remedies that worked in the past.

Vitamin D3 Helps Prevent Acne

Let’s review some simple facts regarding Acne:

Why are more and more adolescents suffering from severe acne? Is it something we’re eating, something we’re taking?

Over the years, our children have received more and more antibiotics for minor ailments. I myself am guilty of demanding antibiotics for my four children when they were younger. My youngest son lived on antibiotics prior to receiving ear tubes. Interestingly, he is the one who has suffered the most with acne.

Many adolescents are treated with antibiotics such as Doxycycline or Minocycline for their acne. The trouble with antibiotics is that while they will indeed kill off the bacteria that may be causing infection, they are non-discriminatory and so will attack the friendly flora in the digestive tract that actually work to keep us healthy. My patients act surprised when I tell them that many elements of the immune system are based the gut.

In a healthy gut, the good bifidobacteria that make up about a third of the gut flora naturally produce antimicrobial agents, which kill off or inhibit the more harmful micro-organisms. When this balance is disrupted and the harmful bacteria are allowed to thrive, they can bind to the gut wall where the damage they cause includes intestinal permeability problems. We fail to absorb the good nutrients, vitamins & minerals and allow the wrong toxins through our intestines. This can lead to nutritional deficiencies, allergies, acne, and auto-immune disease.

The over-prescribing of antibiotics is one of the most common causes of this imbalance. However, supplementing the diet with a good quality probiotic will help re-balance the intestinal system and put those good bacteria back in control. Whenever you are prescribed antibiotics you need to take a probiotic with at least nine strains to counter the negative effects on your digestive system. It is important to note that not all probiotics are created equal. I often prescribe a pharmaceutical strength probiotic with Vitamin D3 for my acne patients.Probiotics Supplements

Even if you suffer from a serious skin condition such as acne, you will likely notice a dramatic improvement to your skin if you take a probiotic supplement. This is because acne has been linked in some studies to intestinal health with researchers reporting increased blood levels of toxins absorbed from the gut in acne sufferers. These toxins come from those pathogens or bad bacteria that take over our intestinal tract. It has been shown that in about 50% of cases of acne, the natural balance of the gut bacteria has been disrupted and the bad bacteria are multiplying faster than the good bacteria. This is referred to as dysbiosis- the disturbance of the natural balance, which is an underlying cause of acne. Probiotics really can make a dramatic and positive difference on your skin.

Although a Vitamin D deficiency does not directly result in acne, obtaining sufficient Vitamin D can help resolve acne by making the skin and body healthier as a whole. Because the sun provides the most potent source of the nutrient, make sure you get enough exposure to the sun to improve your chances of having well-nourished skin. Of course, too much exposure to sun can also cause its own problems, so use your discretion. If your Vitamin D3 levels are low, synthetic forms of the nutrient used in supplements can help with the treatment of several common skin conditions, including acne.

Many clinics are now offering LED Light Therapy which also diminishes inflammation within the sebaceous gland to prevent propions-bacterium (P-acne) from reproducing.

Pamela Egan, NP, ABAAHP Diplomat, CDE is a board certified Adult & Family Nurse Practitioner, American Board of Anti-Aging Health Practitioner, Certified Diabetes Educator, Clinical Specialist in Mental Health can be reached at 985-892-3031.