What are The Health Benefits Of Probiotics?

What are probiotics?

The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics defines probiotics as “live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host”.

That’s quite a mouthful, isn’t it?

Let’s break this definition down into three separate parts which will allows us to better explore the health benefits of probiotics and the various concerns they might help with.

What are live microorganisms?

There are two primary types of “live microorganisms” that generally constitute probiotics.

Yeast-based -  Florastor, which contains the unique probiotic strain Saccharomyces boulardii CNCM I-745, is a great example of a yeast-based probiotic.

Yeast and bacteria are both microorganisms that naturally exist within the human digestive tract but that have different cellular structures and sizes, with yeast generally being the larger of the two.

Bacteria-based – Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium are two of the most well known and well studied families of bacteria-based probiotics.

The vast majority of probiotic products you encounter in store or online will be bacteria-based, although as you are about to find out yeast-based probiotics have unique advantages. 

What is an adequate amount?

Probiotic supplements often contain billions of microorganisms whereas foods containing healthy bacteria may contain less than this amount which is why we cannot exactly consider a probiotic yogurt, for example, to have the same benefits we might see in a study using a probiotic supplement.

Healthcare practitioners like myself rely on scientific studies to best determine the adequate amount of a probiotic to achieve the desired benefits.

What kind of health benefits do probiotics offer?

This is where it gets interesting because know that different types of probiotics may offer benefits to different people in different scenarios.

In all cases, natural health products like probiotics must be approved by Health Canada to ensure any claims they make are trustworthy and rooted in scientific evidence.

Before we touch on that, let’s examine some of the broader ways probiotics actually help.

1.     They create beneficial anti-inflammatory compounds like short chain fatty acids that have benefits on multiple systems in the body

2.     They help to compete for resources with less healthy bacteria which allows your healthy gut bacteria to thrive and flourish – especially after disruption from things like antibiotics.

3.     They can stimulate the body’s immune response – making it more effective.

More specifically, let’s identify the known functionalities of certain common species:

Lactobacillus acidophilus - helps with digestion related concerns including lactose intolerance and constipation.

Bifidobacterium bifidum - have been demonstrated to help with IBS, immune health and suppressing pathogenic bacteria like H pylori.

Lactobacillus reuteri - is known to strengthen the intestinal barrier and reduces inflammation caused by barrier permeability.

Bacteria-based probiotics:

The amount of studies that have been done looking at probiotic use on various aspects of human health is quite massive, but even so it isn’t always easy to make definitive statements about their benefits.

For the health issues listed below, there are at least multiple human-controlled trials demonstrating some level of measurable benefit generally for multi-strain bacteria-based probiotics.

·      IBS/IBD

·      Constipation

·      Fatty Liver Disease

·      Metabolic Health (insulin resistance)

·      Mental Health (anxiety/depression)

Yeast-based probiotics:

Yeast-based probiotics like Saccharomyces boulardii CNCM I-745 have a strength that bacteria-based probiotics do not have which is that they are resistant to antibiotics since they are yeast-based probiotic species.

Keep in mind that antibiotics do not differentiate between good and bad types of bacteria, meaning they reduce numbers of both indiscriminately.

This uniquely places yeast-based probiotics like S Boulardii such that they do not contribute to antibiotic resistance AND that they thrive in assisting people undergoing different forms of antibiotic treatment.

For this reason, we have large amounts of evidence demonstrating that the parallel use of Florastor with antibiotics tends to yield measurable benefits.