If you want to stay well, you need a strong immune
system to protect you against disease and keep you from getting
sick. Your gut acts as a huge immune organ, your first
line of defense against infection, so you need
an ample supply of probiotics, beneficial bacteria that live
in the intestinal tract and help guard it. Your immune cells
depend on their partnership with probiotics to help them shield
the body from harm.
| Wiping
Out Infection |
Probiotics
can help immune systems fend off invaders, but new
research shows their potential in keeping wounds
free from infection. Applied to wounds infected with
Staphylococcus aureus, probiotics seem to keep the
bacteria from binding to the human cells. More studies
are necessary, but current results show how probiotics
may be used against antibiotic-resistant infections. |
 |
|
Billions of Immune Helpers
While your body
consists of about ten trillion cells, the bacteria that live
within us add up to close to a hundred trillion cells. The vast
majority of these bacteria live in the digestive tract. Accompanying
them are most of your immune receptors, which patrol the digestive
tract, destroying invaders that could make you ill. Along with
probiotics and immune cells, the mucous membrane lining
in the digestive tract protects the body from invaders.
When
bacteria or other microbes contact this wall, immune cells
determine whether it is a desirable probiotic or an undesirable
intruder. If accredited as friendly, the immune
cells leave them alone. In fact, friendly bacteria even get
fed – your
sticky mucous membranes incorporate sugars that probiotics
use for nutrition. But if the bacteria or microbes are seen
as potential sources of trouble, the mucus ensnares them,
and passes them through the intestines where they are eventually
excreted.
Barrier Defense
Research
on probiotics demonstrates that they have multiple functions
that help mucous membranes and immune cells protect against infection.
For example, a study in France found that strains of bifidobacterium
helped decrease harmful bacteria, kept them from invading cells
and killed off some types of salmonella, a bacteria that frequently
causes food poisoning (Gut, 2000; 47:646-52). In Germany, when
scientists gave a group of people a probiotic supplement for
three months, they found that they suffered colds that were,
on average, 2 days shorter than those caught by other folks (Clin
Nut, v.24 (4), pp 481-491). These researchers found that after
only two weeks of supplements, the probiotics helped activate
defense cells in the immune system.
Probiotic Deficits
Because
the immune system depends so heavily on the help of its probiotic
partners, anything that threatens these helpful little friends
also threatens our health. Changes in the American diet and lifestyle
during the past few decades have not made life easy for beneficial
bacteria and may be one important reason our health overall has
suffered. As Gary B. Huffnagle, PhD, points out in The
Probiotics Revolution (Bantam), “During the past forty
or fifty years, Americans have inadvertently performed a massive
experiment by making two significant lifestyle modifications:
greatly increasing our use of antibiotics and substantially changing
our diet. Together these changes have produced an invisible epidemic
of insufficient probiotics.”
Fifty years ago, Americans used to eat plenty
of whole grains with fresh fruits and vegetables. But our more
recent reliance on processed foods, which contain little of the
fiber that probiotics need to feed, has favored the growth of
yeast and harmful bacteria and gradually starved out many of
our beneficial organisms. Meanwhile, our use of antibiotics has
also wiped out much of the probiotic bacteria in the gut.
| Promoting
Immunity |
| The
beneficial
probiotic bacteria in our digestive system have
several crucial functions that help prevent
pathogenic microbes from making us sick. |
Probiotics
take food from pathogens.
By
consuming nutrients available in the gut, probiotics
deprive disease-causing organisms the fuel
they may use for reproduction. A fiber-rich
diet helps those probiotics thrive.
Probiotics occupy prime
real estate.
By
attaching to cells in the walls of the digestive
tract, probiotics deny pathogens access
to important gastrointestinal property.
Deprived of a place to live, they
are more easily passed through the digestive tract
for excretion.
Probiotics make
their own antibiotics. Probiotics can make natural
substances that hinder the spread of disease-causing
organisms. Plus, probiotic byproducts can make
the digestive tract more acidic, which disrupts
pathogenic reproduction. |
|
|
Fermentation
Benefits
In the colon, probiotic bacteria make important fatty acids
from the cell walls of fruits and vegetables. Vadivel Ganapathy,
a professor at the Medical College of Georgia,
believes that eating dietary fiber provides necessary food for
the bacteria to survive. Research shows the fatty acids made
by probiotics help keep immune cells vigilant. If the probiotics
decline, so does the supply of the fatty acids, and
possibly your overall health. The body’s
defenses are centered in the digestive tract
where immune cells and probiotic bacteria team up to resist infection.
Whenever we are exposed to harmful bacteria, yeast or parasites,
our immune cells in the digestive tract can shield us. Probiotics
aid this process by boosting the effectiveness and activity of
these immune warriors. That’s why, when you keep the gut
well supplied with probiotics, you make an invaluable contribution
to your present and future health. |
