The health benefits of probiotics explained
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Probiotics are made up of good bacteria that helps keep your body healthy and working well. This good bacterium helps a person in many ways, including fighting off bad bacteria when you have too much of it, helping one to feel better and improving digestion. Probiotics are part of a larger picture concerning bacteria and your body — your microbiome. In Dr Michael Mosley BBC Sound show, Just One Thing, he explored the science behind probiotics. Dr Mosley looked at the benefits and what are the best ways to get them.
Probiotics are live microorganisms that can be consumed through fermented foods or supplements.
More and more studies show that the balance or imbalance of bacteria in your digestive system is linked to overall health and disease.
Probiotics promote a healthy balance of gut bacteria and have been linked to a wide range of health benefits.
These include benefits for weight loss, digestive health, immune function and more.
We would all like some quick and simple things to improve our health, to improve your mood or even a cold shower to boost your immune system, he began.
Dr Mosley discussed his steps he uses to make his home-made sauerkraut.
He said: “I have chopped up about half a kilogram of red cabbage and added some organic onions along with some coriander, chilli and grated in some beetroot.
“Now I am adding a couple of teaspoons of salt to kill any unhealthy bacteria in the cabbage and giving it all a good massage.
“Then I am going to start squishing it with the end of a rolling pin
“After a couple of minutes of that I will transfer it all into a big glass jar and let it ferment for a week or so.”
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“It only takes a few minutes to prepare, and I love the taste of home-made sauerkraut
“One of the reasons I am doing this is because after a week or so I will have a food that is bursting with probiotics, bacteria which can apparently confirm a lot of health benefits.
“Making sauerkraut is one of the easiest ways to generate probiotics.
“We can also make your own kombucha which is a type of fermented tea and kefir, a type of fizzy fermented yoghurt.
“Fermenting has long been an excellent way to ferment food, but these days fermented food have become super trendy because of claims of how consuming probiotics helps to promote weight loss, reduces gut inflammation and perhaps more surprisingly can impact your mental health.”
Benefits of probiotics include:
- Helps to balance the friendly bacteria in your digestive system
- Helps to prevent and treat diarrhoea
- Improves mental health conditions
- Keeps the heart healthy
- Reduces the severity of certain allergies including eczema
- Reduce symptoms of digestive disorders
- Boosts the immune system
- Helps with weight loss and burning belly fat
Live probiotic cultures are often found in fermented dairy products such as yogurts and milk drinks. Fermented foods like pickled vegetables, tempeh, miso, kefir, kimchi, sauerkraut and soy products may also contain some lactic acid bacteria.
You can also take probiotics as tablets, capsules and powders that contain the bacteria in dried form.
However, be aware that some probiotics can be destroyed by stomach acid before they even reach the gut meaning none of the benefits are absorbed.
If you want to experience any of the health benefits discussed above, it’s important that you consume adequate amounts.
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