Probiotics: The Good Bacteria
We always have this misconception about bacteria that they are harmful to our health and can cause sickness and illness too.
Although, this bad reputation is correct but this is just part of the right concept.
It is true that bacteria can cause infection and sickness but there are other types of bacteria that are essential in maintaining the body’s health as well as helping fight other diseases.
It may sound amazing but this is the truth. These bacteria are called the probiotics or good bacteria.
Probiotics is live bacteria that are present in the body.
They are considered as beneficial micro-organism that helps the body in a huge way.
Bacteria can be classified as probiotics if they pass the criteria of being beneficial without causing any harm to the body.
These probiotics mainly comes in a supplement form or in food and drinks fortified with probiotics.
They are in the form of liquid, capsule, tablets and others. It also comes in the form of food like yogurt, milk, sometimes in juices and in soy milk or beverages.
They normally grow in the intestine which is helpful in maintaining the acidity as well as the health of digestive tract.
This probiotics helps in proper functioning of digestive tract helping in the proper elimination of the waste products of digestion which are harmful to the body.
These days, probiotics has found its popularity because of some claims pertaining to its health benefits.
Generally, the benefit that we can get from it is that it is very essential in boosting the immune system of the digestive tract.
Moreover, it fights bad bacteria that usually cause diseases and it helps in the proper digestion and absorption of essential nutrients into our body.
According to some studies, there should be a homeostasis in our digestive system.
If there is imbalance inside the digestive system this will bring health malfunction. For example, if there is no balance between good and bad bacteria it will affect the digestion and absorption of nutrients.
This will cause weight problem, constipation, diarrhea, infection in the digestive system like h. pylori which is the causative agent for peptic ulcer, skin infection, vaginal infection, stomach problem, respiratory problem and inflammatory bowel disease. When things get worst it might lead to colon cancer and many other chronic diseases.
It is also believed that probiotics lowers carcinogens in the body. There are carcinogens that are ingested through the foods that we eat.
The good bacteria or the probiotics acts as the soldiers defending our body from invasion of carcinogens that causes cancer. Mainly, these good bacteria or probiotics helps us maintain our health.
However, there are still no proven studies that probiotics really has all these benefits.
This is because it is too complicated and would be time consuming if they will study about these bacteria.
There are thousands of species of good bacteria and each species has a lot of strains. Nonetheless, there are some strains that are popularly produced and made as supplements already proven to be helpful for the health.