PROBIOTICS

By Trevor Shewfelt, Pharmacist at the Dauphin Clinic Pharmacy

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The information in this article is intended as a helpful guide only. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional advice. If you have any questions about your medications and what is right for you see your doctor, pharmacist or other health care professional.

My parents spent their 40th wedding anniversay in Wawa, Ontario. Wawa is where my dad grew up and they were there helping my grandmother move from her house into an apartment. My grandmother was ahead of her time when it came to feeding my dad the lastest super healthy foods. She insisted that he take cod liver oil, or as she called it "liquid sunshine". That provided him with both Vitamin D and Omega-3 fatty acids, which are all over the news. My grandmother also tried to get him to eat yogurt. Apparently the yogurt was made fresh at the family farm, but my dad wouldn't go near it. He still won't eat yogurt. Score another one for grandma, though. Yogurt is just one of the new "probiotics" that we are all supposed to be eating.
Probiotics are "good" microorganisms for the intestines. Probiotics contain actual tiny living things that go into your intestines, start growing and push out the "bad" microorganisms that might be there. Probiotic microbes have names like Lactobacillus, Bifidobacteria and Saccharomyces. There are more and more products in the pharmacy that are promoted as probiotics. Should we all take them? Let's have a look.
Apparently this probiotic movement is older than I thought. A Russian scientist named Elie Metchnikoff was looking at a particularily long lived group of Bulgarian mountain men. These mountain men drank a fermented milk product that had lots of lactic acid producing bacteria in it. Metchnikoff thought the bacteria in the fermented milk drink helped the immune system in the mountain men's gut. This was all going on in the late 1800's and early 1900's. So was Metchinikoff right? Well the human digestive tract is about 5 meters long from end to end and if stretched out it would cover about 2 tennis courts. And it is full of bacteria and other microbes. Our guts get colonized within hours of birth and by adulthood there are actually 10 times more bacteria cells in our guts than there are human cells in our body. The bacteria in our guts help us break down some foods, release some nutrients we otherwise couldn't get at and helps our immune system.
The immune system part surprised me. Apparently up to 75% of the body's immune system cells are in the gut. Our gut bacteria help stimulate our immune system in the prescence of bad invasive microbes and helps calm the immune system so it doesn't go attacking non-harmful things. In interesting experiments researchers took new born mice and put them into a sterile environment before bacteria got into their guts. These mice developed very badly working immune systems. However the mice were "cured" when they were then allowed to live with normal mice with normal gut microbes for a few weeks. We assume the normal gut microbes moved from the normal mice to the guts of the sterile mice.
So should everyone go to the pharmacy and buy some lactobacillus acidophillus capsules? Well, probably not. It is still a stretch from health Bulgarian mountain men and mice with no gut microbes to buying capsules at the pharmacy. However, there are some products in the pharmacy I have recommended in the past that I will share. A big warning first though. The science saying that if you take these probiotics that your condition will get better is incomplete at best. So why do I still recommend them? I do because the chance of harm from probiotics is very, very low.
I have recommended lactobacillus capsules to women who always get yeast infections after taking antibiotics for years. Apparently, there isn't any science to back up that recommendation at all. There is some evidence to support that women who get yeast infections regularily not from antibiotics who take lactobacillus capsules will get less yeast infections.
Well couldn't you just eat more yogurt. Maybe. I was surprised to learn yogurt isn't necessarily probiotic. To be probiotic the product has to be able to survive through the acid of the stomach, the bile acids of the small intestine and then be able to reproduce in the large intestine. Only yogurt may with certain types of bacteria can do that. For example the brand "Activa" reports to be made with bacteria that can survive the trip through the acid stomach.
I have recommended BioGaia for colic. Colic is when an infant cries and cries for no apparent reason. If you have an infant that may have colic, have the infant checked out by your doctor just to make sure there is nothing else wrong. BioGaia is a probiotic drop which has some evidence that it reduces how often a colicy baby cries. Now as it is hard to tell when an infant will just grow out of colic, there are some people who question if BioGaia works. However, as there is very little chance of harm with BioGaia, I have recommended it. BioGaia requires refridgeration.
TuZen is an lactobacillus capsule that is being promoted as helpful for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). IBS is when you have diarrhea or constipation and other stomach disorder for no apparent reason. If you think you have IBS, please have your doctor rule out other causes. I have had people take TuZen and had their IBS symptoms get better. Since IBS symptoms tend to come and go in some people, it is a little controversial if TuZen works or not. What I can tell you is that TuZen is made with a special type of lactobacillus that can survive its trip through the stomach and unlike some other products it does not require refridgeration

As always if you have any questions or concerns about these or other products, ask your pharmacist.