Maintaining Your Nutrition With Good Bacteria
Few things are more fascinating to study than the good bacteria dwelling in our own guts, says microbiologist Jeffrey I. Gordon of the Center for Genome Sciences in St. Louis.
These plentiful microorganisms thrive alongside viruses, yeast cells, archaea and parasites in a constantly open ecosystem. “If the formidable barrier produced by symbiotic bacteria is destroyed, some previously minor bacteria can expand and produce disease.
There is also a lot of horizontal gene transfer from one bacterium to another, creating new strains and spreading antibiotic resistance. It’s very dynamic!” In addition to studying the potential of our bacteria to be pathogenic, he also looks at the potential for probiotic products to help us fight off the detrimental bacteria.
Lactobacillus gg is perhaps the most important strain of friendly bacteria in the digestive tract. Their primary function is to turn milk sugar into lactic acid, which creates an unsuitable environment for harmful bacteria.
Additional research suggests they may also help normalize cholesterol levels, relieve anxiety by releasing the amino acid tryptophan, and aggressively target Candida, which is the overabundance of harmful bacteria.
When administered as probiotic foods or probiotic capsules, the lactobacillus will make its way to the digestive tract and urinary tract.
A recent study of 50 patients at University Hospital in Lund, Sweden determined that friendly bacteria probiotic products were just as effective as antiseptics in preventing ventilator-caused pneumonia.
Study leader Bengt Klarin said, “We hypothesised that swabbing the mouth with probiotics would be an effective (and microbiologically attractive) method of reducing pathogenic oral microorganisms in intubated, mechanically ventilated, critically ill patients.”
He said that the risk of developing pneumonia increases 1% each additional day of mechanical ventilation. Normal antiseptics often have adverse side effects like tooth discoloration, irritation and allergic reactions, but the L. plantarum friendly bacteria, commonly found in saliva, pickles and sauerkraut has no adverse effects.
Even though the study was short-lived and relatively small, this discovery has huge potential in preventing infectious hospital-related illnesses.
In agriculture, scientists are examining how probiotic bacteria might eliminate the need for livestock antibiotics with the use of probiotics food. For instance, baby chicks are frequently treated with a Preempt spray as soon as they’re hatched, so when they peck their wet feathers they ingest 29 varieties of good bacteria, thereby preventing salmonella bacteria that 10% of chickens develop.
Good bacteria promotes the storage of energy as fat, breaks down carcinogens, synthesizes vitamin K and other vitamins we can’t generate on our own, creates a barrier in the small intestine and increases the rate that the intestinal lining cells renew themselves. The question is can nutrition probiotics work similarly in humans?
