Probiotics and Prebiotics what are they?
Did you know that you have about 10 trillion microorganisms living in your body? These microorganisms are also known as intestinal microflora. There are between 300 and 1,000 different species living inside your gut. The relationship between you and them is both symbiotic and mutualistic. These microorganisms (mostly bacteria) help prevent the growth of harmful bacteria, help you utilize undigested carboyhydrates, increase the growth of intestinal cells and produce both biotin and vitamin K. However, probiotics is a controversial subject because of many factors. Some of those factors include the source of the bacteria, the strain, and how many of the bacteria survive the shelf life. Most probiotics don’t tell you the source and many tell you the availability at time of manufacture, which may be extremely different from what you get after it has been shipped and stored on the shelf.
There is also controversy over the strains because some people say that not all of us have the same strains living in our guts. I thought that I remembered from a Microbiology class that some of these bacteria actually help us absorb vitamins and minerals. However, when I looked at Wikipedia they said this wasn’t true. They say that babies are born with sterile systems until they are exposed to bacteria. I wonder if that’s so because Mom does every thing for them while they are in the womb.
More on the topic later as I research some microbiology books.
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