Our Microbiome is being compromised by the increase in antibiotic-resistant drugs, and Sally Davies, chief medical advisor to the UK Government has said we are headed for “post-antibiotic apocalypse”
Could Probiotics Be The Solution? The solution lies, according to Eve Kalinik, nutritional therapist and author of “Be Good To Your Gut”, not in antibiotics but in probiotics. Instead of killing our microbiome, we can tweak it to fight all kinds of issues.
Fundamental to Human Health: The human body contains trillions of microbes. Their interactions create vitamins, break down our food, fight infections and communicate with our genes. Without a healthy microbiome we are in serious trouble. A healthy person has several hundred species of microbes in their gut, but an unhealthy person can have as few as 30!
What Disrupts Our Microbiome? It’s not just antibiotics that affect the function of the gut, most drugs disrupt the microbiome. It is further disrupted by excess consumption of refined sugar and other stimulants, and a poor diet high in processed food and low in raw fruits and vegetables.
A Stronger Immune System And Age-Reversing Effects: Research is increasingly supporting the notion that good quality Probiotics improve the body’s immune system, and that fact alone will make us less inclined to pick up the bugs that require us to take antibiotics in the first place.
Mental Health: Research in recent years has shown a clear improvement in mental function of Alzheimers sufferers with the use of Probiotics. Why? We know that Alzheimers is an inflammatory condition and we also know that changes in gut bacteria enhance inflammation. Disruption in gut bacteria could therefore logically hasten brain degeneration in Alzheimers sufferers. Research has demonstrated that where there is a loss of diversity in gut organisms, a direct correlation exists to increased prevalence of Alzheimer’s. It has major implications, not only in terms of brain function, but in relation to a number of other diseases where inflammation is an underlying cause, like Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, coronary artery disease, and even cancer.