Recently, I went through a course of antibiotics.
I was thinking of taking probiotics, to keep my…inner aspects…in order.
I have heard that some probiotics may help in weight control.
True or Woo?
And, good/inexpensive probiotics available over the counter?
Take a moment to read this article from last week’s New York Times:
Some of My Best Friends Are Germs
It contains an amazing amount of information about what we currently know about all the bugs that coexist with us inside our bodies.
Thanks to moriah who originally posted it here.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if fat and skinny people have differences in their gut flora, but to attribute fat vs. skinny to these differences sounds like the tail wagging the dog to me.
Regardless, I’d be very dubious of anything you’d buy in a health food store claiming to improve your intestinal biota. If you want to find a doctor willing to give you a fecal transplant go right ahead, but my impression is that if you’re looking at “probiotic” foods or supplements, you’re just as well off eating some plain yogurt.
Armenians have been keeping the sluices shut at both ends for centuries by eating copious amounts of yogurt. Wiki sez yeast is good too, so by all means, try to drink more beer.
Woo.
Probiotics are mere drops compared to the ocean that is an individual’s microbiome; they can make a difference during and after course of antibiotics but making an significant, let alone lasting, impact on the composition of the microbiome itself (and thus on the various as of yet poorly understood ways the microbiome regulates a variety of bodily functions, from inflammation to appetite to metabolism to insulin sensitivity) … no. A complete fecal transplant, yes, to some degree.
One can potentially impact the composition of the microbiome by long term nutritional habits … but while nutritional habits associated with healthy and unhealthy outcomes are somewhat established, which microbiomes contribute and how is still a work in progress.
While I wholehearted agree with you that yogurt is much better than any of the pills or liquids in the health food stores, the better yogurt, for probotics, would be live culture yogurt. An even cheaper and, I think, easier and better tasting way of getting probotics is making Kefir. Get some of the grains, and make your own overnight. In the morning strain it and throw some blueberrys, or 1/4 of a banana, or a strawberry and run it through the blender or drink it plain. Very simple to make and if you want cheap and plentiful probotics kefir contains more than you are going to get from any pill or liquid.