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Chronic stress, drinking excess alcohol, eating a diet high in saturated and trans fats, taking antibiotics, as well as eating red and processed meats and added sugars can disrupt the healthy balance of good vs. bad microbes in your intestinal tract.
This article will discuss natural ways to improve gut health and how probiotics may help.
Probiotics are trillions of beneficial microbes (bacteria mostly, but also viruses, fungi, and parasites) that live in your body and are the key to good gut health. These beneficial bacteria help you maintain healthy blood sugar and cholesterol levels, protect your liver, help build immune system strength, and help protect your bones, heart, and brain from inflammatory damage. Probiotics also help counter the effect of harmful gut microbes, such as E. coli, that can trigger infection as well as gastrointestinal upset.
Fortunately, there is a lot you can do to maintain or reestablish a healthy gut microbiome. What you eat, your level of physical activity, and taking pre- and probiotic supplements can transform your inner well-being—and your outward glow of health.
Healthful probiotics depend on being fed the prebiotic nutrients they need to thrive. Prebiotics are foods that deliver fermentable soluble fiber to your intestines, where they are broken down into short-chain fatty acids, like some omega-3s. They help provide energy to your cells body-wide, help protect the lining of the intestines (to keep bad guys from getting into your bloodstream), and help control inflammation while they boost immunity.
The three most common forms of prebiotics, found in high-fiber foods, are resistant starches, inulin, and pectin. You can get resistant starches by eating green bananas, barley, rice, oats, beans, and legumes. Inulin is found in asparagus, garlic, leeks, onions, Jerusalem artichokes, and soybeans. Pectin shows up in apples, apricots, carrots, green beans, peaches, raspberries, tomatoes, and potatoes.
You aren’t just what you eat; you’re what you move, too. Exercise seems to boost bacterial communities that produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which play a crucial role in repairing the gut lining and modifying your metabolism and immune responses.
Aim for a minimum of 150 minutes of physical activity weekly, including strength-building exercise and moderate-intensity to vigorous aerobics, which helps probiotics provide their benefits for your overall health. A study in Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity sums it up like this: “Exercise is able to enrich the microflora diversity”.
Top Probiotic Foods:
The fermentation in these foods helps create enzymes, B vitamins, and omega-3 fatty acids, as well as a variety of good bacteria—all of which help you maintain a healthy gut.
Try this recipe to make dairy-free cashew yogurt or this recipe for a turmeric sauerkraut.
Prebiotic supplements deliver the soluble fiber that your intestinal probiotics need to thrive—but they are not a substitute for getting nutrient-packed, gut-loving prebiotics from foods.
Probiotics contain various combinations of beneficial microbes. Favorites include a combination of Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria, strains that are found naturally in the intestinal tract. The various strains of Lactobacilli include L. acidophilus, L. rhamnosus, L. casei and L. plantarum. Bifidobacteria include Bifidobacterium longum and Bifidobacterium breve.
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health suggests you talk to your doctor before taking a probiotic. However, optimal doses are unknown, and it is not known how to determine which probiotics will benefit any individual. Again, it is important to include food sources of probiotics, even if you supplement.
If you want to upgrade your gut health or help soothe a sometimes-over- or underactive bowel, increasing your supply of healthful pre- and probiotics through food and supplements is the pro move.
References:
By Dr. Mehmet Oz, M.D. 
