Here you go Bernard.
I said that I would post some information on probiotics and what they do for us. I copied some of these paragraphs from different sites and wrote some of this in my own words
Probiotics.... means, " for life " Let me start with a basic description of the function of our intestines. There is the small, upper intestine which is approx. 25 feet long, and the large lower intestine, the colon, which is approx. 6 feet long. The small intestine, if opened up and spread out would cover a tennis court in area. It is lined with cells that excrete 4 enzymes that break down just a few of the carbohydrates that we ingest. This is why we cannot eat tree bark or grass for example. We don't produce the enzymes that will break down the carbohydrates in them so that they can be absorbed by the intestine. These would be called insoluable fiber. The colon is where all the matter that doesn't get broken down is dumped for removal from the body. The colon reabsorbes water out of the waste for recycling as well as other things.
Our intestines are home to some 400 species of bacteria, total population is estimated at 100 Trillion which is more than the total number of cells in our bodies. The combined weight of the bacteria living inside us weighs 2 to 4 pounds and the dry volume of our stools is 30% bacteria. The name for this diverse and huge population of bacteria living inside of us is called the " MICROFLORA ". Our intestines are first colonized by bacteria during birth because a woman's birth canal and vagina are colonized by bacteria.
Once our microflora is established, it tends to remain in place throughout our lives but degrades as we get older. Unfortunately there are many outside factors that can alter or destroy our microflora. Antibiotics, stress, alcohol, chemicals, processed foods, chlorinated water, high amounts of sugar and radiation are some of the items that can affect our flora. While our gastrointestinal systems were evolving over the past couple of million years we developed a symbiosis with some bacteria that became our flora. Our immune systems don't attack these bacteria. During this evolution everyone can imagine what man's diet consisted of. Probably plants and meat. Suddenly in this century we began ingesting processed foods loaded with chemical preservatives and sugar. We also developed antibiotics, which kill the good bacteria as well as the bad. Over the past 50 years, gastrointestinal disease has been skyrocketing. Our microflora is our first line of defense against pathogenic organisms. They protect us in several ways. First, if our flora is colonized, attached to the intestinal walls, then invaders entering the intestines won't be able to find an attachment site because they are already taken so they will pass thru and be expelled. Secondly, some of our friendly bacteria secrete byproducts such as antibiotic substances and hydrogen peroxide which kill invading organisms. Thirdly, some species such as the Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterias produce lactic and acetic acids which lower the ph of the intestines which most harmful bacteria don't like and would have a hard time living in. They have also been shown to increase the production of interferon by our immune system. So our microflora helps take a large load off of our immune systems by doing alot of the work in defeating the pathogenic organisms that we ingest from eating, drinking and breathing then swallowing. We are under constant assault every day. If our microflora is weakened it will put a strain on our immune system.
If our normal microflora is altered or weakened it can give the pathogenic organisms a chance to take over. When this happens we can develop disease. When they attach to the intestinal wall they cause irritation which makes our body defend itself by producing mucous. The trouble with mucous covering the intestial walls is that food particles can no longer come in contact with the cells that secrete the enzymes to digest the carbohydrates. These carbohydrates now stay in the intestines to be digested by the pathogenic bacteria which gives them the energy to multiply. This is known as the vicious cycle.
Our microflora, ( Probiotics ), do a number of good things for us. They produce many of our B vitamins, they convert cholestrol to a less absorbable form to decrease the amount that we absorb into our system, they help to relieve both constipation and diarrhea. They prevent some precarcinogin substances from turning into procarcinogins thereby helping to prevent cancer. They defend the body from invading organisms and help to boost the immune system. Four-fifth's of the immunes system is located in the lining of the small intestine. They digest soluable fiber into short chain fatty acids, SCFAs, which are used directly by the intestinal mucosal cells as food.
As you can see, our microflora is extremely important to good health and this is why everyone should consume probiotics in their diet. In cultured milk like kefir and yogurt there can be 1 Billion bacteria per ml. There are 31 mls. in 1 fluid oz. So in an 8 oz. glass of kefir there should be approx. 250 Billion good bacteria. Most of the probiotic supplements out there have about 2 Billion per capsule. So one glass of kefir would be like eating 125 probiotic capsules.
Yogurt is made with L. bulcaricus and S. thermophilus cultures. Recently I have seen yogurts that have other cultures added to them like L. acidophilus and B. Bifidum.
Kefir contains the following cultures:
Lb. brevis
Lb. kefir
Lb. paracasei
Lb.plantarum
Lb. acidophilus
Lb. bulgaricus,
Lb. kefiranofaciens
Lc. lactis
Lc. diacetylactis
Lc. cremoris
Ln. mesenteroides
Ln. dextranicum
Ln. cremoris
Ln. lactis
Acetobacter aceti
Acetobacter rasens
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Saccharomyce unisporus
Candida kefir
Kluyveromyces marxianus
This is only 20 of the 30 different micro organisms that I could find that make up kefir.
The first line of protection against dysbiosis and intestinal toxicity is strict control of intestinal permeability, the ability of the gut to allow some substances to pass through its walls while denying access to others. The healthy gut selectively absorbs nutrients and seals out those components which are most likely to cause harm. It is very important to understand what this permeability means because it will explain how we can develop a slew of different diseases because of the intestine allowing microrganisms or pieces of them along with toxins produced by them to pass thru the intestinal wall and into our blood streams which can cause many problems. Think of the intestinal wall as a very fine filter that only allows the proper substances thru. Once pathogenic bacteria attach to the wall lining and cause inflammation, this filter loosens up allowing larger substances to pass thru.
Bacteria form the largest segment of the intestinal flora. The number of bacteria in the large bowel (about a hundred trillion) exceeds the number of cells in the human body. Intestinal bacteria perform some useful functions, so that our relationship with them is normally one of mutual benefit. They synthesize half a dozen vitamins, supplementing those which are obtained from food. They convert dietary fibre--that part of food which humans cannot digest--into small fatty acids which nourish the cells of the large intestine. They degrade dietary toxins like methyl mercury making them less harmful to the body. They crowd out pathogenic bacteria like Salmonella, decreasing the risk of food poisoning. They stimulate the development of a vigorous immune response. Four-fifths of the body's immune system is located in the lining of the small intestine.
Fragments of dead bacteria may leak into the wall of the intestine or into the blood stream due to a breakdown in the mechanisms which regulate intestinal permeability. Circulating through the body, bacterial debris is deposited in tissues such as joints, provoking an attack on those tissues by an immune system trying to remove the foreign material, potentially causing arthritis.
Excess permeability also allows excessive absorption of toxins derived from the chemical activity of intestinal bacteria, stressing the liver. All materials absorbed from the intestine must pass through the liver before entering the body's general circulation. Here, in the cells of the liver, toxic chemicals are destroyed or else prepared for excretion out of the body. The cost of detoxification is high; free radicals are generated and the liver's stores of anti-oxidants are depleted. The liver may be damaged by the products of its own attempts at detoxification. Damage may extend to the pancreas. Free radicals are excreted into bile; this "toxic" bile flows into the small intestine and can ascend into the ducts which carry pancreatic juices, damaging the pancreas, aggravating malnutrition.
The symptoms produced by excessive intestinal permeability may be limited to the abdomen or may involve the entire body. They may include fatigue and malaise, joint and muscle pain, headache and skin eruptions. The clinical disorders associated with increased intestinal permeability include any inflammation of the large or small intestine (colitis and enteritis), chronic arthritis , skin conditions like acne, eczema, hives or psoriasis, migraine headaches, chronic fatigue and deficient pancreatic function. In most cases, it is incorrect to think of excessive permeability as the cause of these disorders. Instead, excess permeability occurs as part of the chain of events which causes disease and aggravates existing symptoms or produces new ones.
Some forms of arthritis are preceded by increased intestinal permeability. People with inflammation of the intestine are prone to develop inflammatory arthritis which may continue for many years after the intestinal inflammation is healed. Fragments of intestinal bacteria have been identified in the joints in some cases. In others, antibodies directed against intestinal bacteria may attack the person's own joint tissue, causing an auto-immune reaction.
Soluble fibre feeds the intestinal bacteria, which ferment it to produce chemicals called short chain fatty acids (SCFAs). SCFAs have a number of positive effects on the body: they nourish the cells of the large intestine, stimulating healing and reducing the development of cancer. When absorbed from the intestine, they travel to the liver and decrease the liver's production of cholesterol, lowering blood cholesterol levels.
A large body of research over the past ninety years has demonstrated the preventive value of eating foods fermented with Lactobacilli or their cousins, Bifidobacteria. Eating these friendly bacteria prevents intestinal infection due to viruses or pathogenic bacteria and preserves intestinal permeability in the face of infection or other types of injury, can prevent antibiotic-induced diarrhea and travelers diarrhea and can lower serum cholesterol levels. Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria also show anti-cancer activity, by two mechanisms: they inhibit the growth or activity of cancer-promoting bacteria and some strains actually produce chemicals which inhibit tumor growth.
Nutritional yeast has been used as a dietary supplement for generations, as a source of vitamins and minerals and for treatment of digestive complaints
The yeast used in baking bread or brewing beer belong to the genus Saccharomyces of which kefir contains two different strains of Saccharomyces, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyce unisporus.
Saccharomyces boulardii has been used in Europe for decades to treat acute diarrhea and controlled trials have shown it effective in preventing or treating diarrhea brought on by antibiotics. S. boulardii appears to exert its beneficial affects by inactivating bacterial toxins and by stimulating intestinal immune responses.
Sulphur loving bacteria that give mud in estuaries and ocean sediments their pungent, rotten-egg smell may have invaded your gut. In the sea, they are notorious troublemakers which are known for corroding oil pipelines, and their effect on human passageways may be equally devastating.
All these microbes need to flourish in your guts is a good supply of sulphurous compounds. And that's where your diet comes in. Eat large amounts of animal protein and processed food and you could be giving these bad bugs everything they need to triumph at the expense of your natural healthy gut microbes. Over the past decade, the researchers doing this work have steadily accumulated evidence to implicate sulphur bacteria in a range of human diseases from inflammatory bowel diseases to colon cancer.
Meat and other foods high in protein release sulphur-amino acids as they are digested. These feed bacteria in the same way that other sulphur compounds do. Studies have shown that as meat consumption rises from 60 to 600 grams per day, sulphates in the urine double, and sulphides in faeces increase tenfold. A diet rich in meat has long been implicated in colon cancer, and is suspected that the toxic sulphides released by these microbes might promote cancerous changes in gut cells by damaging their DNA.
The second major source of sulphur in our diet is a large family of sulphur additives in foods and drinks: sulphur dioxide, sulphites, bisulphites, metabisulphites and sulphates
These sulphur compounds are the major preservative in the Western diet. They are in hundreds and hundreds of foods, everything from sausages and burgers to jam, dried raisins and instant soup. Even fresh foods may not be sulphur-free--packaged salads are "gassed" with sulphur dioxide to prolong their shelf life. Soft drinks, wines, beers and ciders can contain widely varying levels, which do not have to be listed on the label.
Although the evidence is not yet in, it is suspected that other inflammatory bowel diseases, such as Crohn's disease, as well as the ill-defined irritable bowel syndrome, could also be linked to sulphate-reducing bacteria. As bacterial warfare is waged in the human gut, our health may yet depend on feeding an army of friendly microbes and starving the foe into submission.
This information shows how important it is to keep the bad bacteria in our intestines at a minimum. If not they produce toxins and cause intestinal permeability to be changed which allows several diseases the chance of developing. The best way to help prevent the root of all these problems, the bad bacteria, is to keep the good bacteria in control, let them do the fighting for us. Taking probiotics everyday is the same as sending in new platoons of soldiers to strengthen our intestinal army on a constant basis. It is a preventitive treatment. Everyone should consume probiotics everyday and what better way of getting a broad spectrum of them in huge quantities than drinking at least one glass of kefir everyday. Keep in mind that you can not overdose on probiotics.
Any questions?
Mark |
