Probiotic Feature: It’s a gut feeling
I like to think of myself as a pretty chilled out guy who manages to enjoy life and take everything at a steady pace. But the reality is, I am just as guilty as the next person when it comes to trying to fit too much into my life, which is definitely detrimental to my health.
I often find myself working late into the evening and having to deal with a hungry child, whilst trying to squeeze in my dinner at some point. My wife is the same.
We wake up early (because we have to) rush breakfast, work non-stop all day and then we graft at home until we drop.
By the time we are ready to relax, take our foot off the gas and watch a DVD, we usually fall asleep on the sofa.
But this is pretty much the norm for many people in Western life. So many of us seem to be guilty of putting our health and a responsible diet to the back of the queue.
Many experts say that as a result, we end up causing serious damage to our bodies over time, which makes us susceptible diseases later in life.
But academics also say it does not have to be too late to reverse the impact and start mending our bodies. One of the ways we can start doing this is by including probiotics into our lives.
Scientists from around the world have carried out trials which have proved that implanting bacteria (contained in probiotics) into the gut that originates from the gastro intestinal tract helps to improve its overall function.
Robert Beson, the CEO of Australian based probiotic manufacturing company Progurt (a clever blend of probiotic and yogurt), says that probiotics can be consumed as a powerful food to regulate the gut, which is often the root problem of many health issues.
But using probiotics by itself will not help to improve health. Instead, it has to be taken with a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle to really make a difference. If taken correctly, he believes the impact can be huge, such as providing you with more energy to complete all your daily tasks with a peaceful mind.
“We've all heard of the famous phrase: "Breakfast like a King, lunch like a Prince and dine like a pauper", but how many of us actually do this? Instead, it's usually the other way round. In fact, a huge number of us dine like Kings and eat breakfast like paupers. And then we wonder why we have such a big problem with obesity in the Western world.”
He says that we need to go to bed early, wake up early, do more exercise and stop ploughing so many toxins into our bodies.
“You need to take the probiotics with fruit and vegetables because it requires sugars found in unprocessed organic material to do its work properly.”
Probiotics are made up of micro organisms, such as lactic acid bacteria, bifidobacteria, yeast or bacilli, which are all healthy for humans.
Their purpose is to improve the intestinal microbial balance and inhibit toxin bacterias from being produced.
Many investigations are currently underway to ascertain how probiotics manage to alleviate chronic intestinal inflammatory diseases, such as diarrhoea. They do this by modifying the gut flora to replace harmful microbes with useful ones.
“If you introduce the right bacteria into your life, you will end up craving fresh food more than processed food, because the bacteria need these substances to prevent them from dying out,” adds Beson. “People can't live without bacteria, so they are probably our best friends. Did you know that there are seven trillion cells that make up the human body and there are 20 bits of bacteria for every cell.”
“So there are about 140 trillion bits of bacteria lining in our gastro intest tracts. The bacteria found in probiotics, like Progurt are either missing, have been minimised or have been suppressed because of our modern way of life.”
Beson says that if you have good bacteria in your body they will replicate themselves over and over again. And a healthy diet helps them to replicate faster.
“But you will only need to take probiotics for about nine to thirteen months until the gut is balanced again – and then you don't need it anymore after that. In fact, if we ate the way Indigenous people traditionally ate, we would find that our gut flora is a lot more vibrant and healthy. But people are so stressed these days with going to work and getting the kids to school on time, for example, that they compromise all of their morning time, which is the most important time of the day.”
Stress alone though does not cause all the health problems that probiotics can reverse, according to Beson.
“You would need to have constant attacks on dietary choices, such as consuming excessive alcohol, smoking too much tobacco and eating the wrong foods that contain preservatives, to really damage your systems. These foods and consumable habits don't contain the good sugars that probiotics try to replicate.
“80% of the health problems we are facing today are down to diet and lifestyle decisions. People have to be willing to buy unprocessed food that is fresh, smells nice and tastes good, and they need to eat them especially in the morning before work begins.”
“All of us are working harder than ever because we want more money. For many people, the children end up having to look after themselves. But imagine how much better life would be if we spent more time preparing food at home and we ate proper breakfasts?”
When he was asked to provide a metaphor for what probiotics actually do to the body, he chose to use the comparison of driving a car responsibly.
“It doesn't matter how much oil you have in the car, how fantastic the tyres are, how amazing your brakes are, how fabulous your suspension is or how good the steering is, if you want to drive at 160km an hour in a 60km an hour zone in the middle of Sydney, you can expect to hurt yourself, especially if it's foggy and rainy.
“But if you drive responsibly, you can avoid all of these problems. That's what probiotics add to your lifestyle. So long as you lead a healthy lifestyle and eat the right foods, then probiotics will steer you towards better health as a whole.
"If wealth could buy health then Kerry Packer would have lived past his 60s. But instead he didn't listen to the advice we hear all the time from our media about preventative health and that's why he and many other people, quite frankly, end up dying younger than they should do.
"How long can people keep ignoring the message that they need to respect diet and how they look after their bodies and minds in order to stay healthy? If you ignore the advice, then you've got to say, you have nobody else to blame but yourself. It's about time we starting pushing the message harder.”
In the past, probiotics have been known to improve digestion, enhance your immune system, reduce your body fat, increase your energy, rehydrate your skin and also improve your mood.
It is useful for a number of conditions, such as allergies, bowel conditions, diabetes and multiple sclerosis, amongst others.
Beson says there are even some studies that are currently being undertaken into how probiotics can provide an alternative, safe and effective treatment for preventing asthma.
To find out more about Progurt, click here: http://thephj.com/directory/article/progurt/
Thanks so much for this! This is exactly what I was looking for.
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