Probiotics

Healthy "friendly" intestinal bacteria is essential not only to good intestinal health, but without it overall vibrant health is quite difficult to achieve and/or maintain. Bacteria are everywhere. We swallow them with food, drink them with water, they are in the air we breathe, on our skin, in our mouths, digestive tract, sinuses and other areas of our bodies. In so far as health is concerned, some of them are harmful, some neutral, and some are very beneficial. Some are extremely valuable for good health as they work harmoniously with our immune system.

In a healthy colon, there are literally billions of beneficial or "friendly" bacteria. Under favorable conditions, they multiply at fast enough rates to keep pace with the large numbers that are lost during elimination. (Bacteria is also referred to as micro-organisms). When they are located in the intestinal tract, they are referred to as "intestinal flora," "micro-flora", "good bacteria", "friendly/beneficial bacteria" or sometimes just "flora." These friendly bacteria synthesize many important vitamins in the digestive tract including Vitamin K and some of the B vitamins. A very important function they perform is helping the colon maintain a proper pH or acid-base balance. It is necessary for the pH to stay in the correct range in order for other health supporting bacteria to exist. It is also important to keep levels of antagonistic micro-organisms under control.

If you are not actively replenishing your intestinal bacteria, both with supplements and contributing foods, you indirectly are providing to the recurrence of future health problems. An intestinal tract devoid of friendly intestinal bacteria is a breeding ground for future illness.

Enemies of beneficial flora

• Drugs- especially antibiotics, as one dose can eliminate all friendly bacteria in your intestines.
• Alcohol- it destroys enzymes and lacto bacteria, not to mention actual cells (particularly brain cells)
• Coffee- each cup can destroy 20% of the friendly bacteria in your gut.
• Meat- it feeds the bacillus coli (harmful bacteria) which in turn destroy the good bacteria.
• Bread- especially white flour or any wheat bread that was baked in an oven.
• Sugar- that includes breakfast cereals, chocolate, cakes, pies, cookies, ice cream, soda pop, etc.
• Fried foods- e.g. potato chips, fries, and anything fried in oil.
• Antibiotics- can’t tell the difference between good or bad bacteria and kill it all. This allows the candida to proliferate very quickly as there is no good bacteria to eat it.

Eating these foods provide candida a prime environment to proliferate out of control. Your beneficial flora only replicate every 2-3 days yet candida can replicate every 20-30 minutes!! You can see how easy it is to get out of balance. When you crave sugars, carbs, or alcohol that is the candida crying out to be fed. The urges are quite difficult to ignore and will be relieved if you give in but this only contributes to the proliferation of the candida and know you can see how that leads to many health issues.

Eating lacto-fermented foods is one vital way to obtain probiotics and there are many probiotic supplements in the market. The formula I take, and recommend, is Total Flora Support from EcoQuest. It is dairy free and has been stabilized so that it won’t be ruined in the transport process. (Most products you find in the store have been killed in transport!) Whatever probiotc you decide to use please make sure it is dairy free and has been stabilized. Don’t be afraid to call manufacturers to see how they operate- it does make a difference.