Probiotic Foods

Probiotic Foods

Healthy probiotic foods such as plain unflavored yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, miso, pickles, tempeh, kimchi and kombucha tea and milk fed veal chop. It has 1,000 different types of bacteria that live in our digestive tracts, helping us to break down food and absorb nutrients. But when we take antibiotics, medicine that is designed to kill destructive, illness-causing bacteria, the drugs can also kill the healthy intestinal flora that helps us digest. About 30 percent of the patients who take antibiotics report suffering from diarrhea or some other form of gastrointestinal distress, according to the recent JAMA study on probiotics and antibiotic-associated diarrhea.

Probiotics can be helpful for people with irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, a hard-to-treat condition that can have a range of intestinal symptoms, such as abdominal pain, cramps, bloating, diarrhea and constipation. High quality study found a relationship between women taking probiotics during pregnancy and a 30 percent reduction in the instance of childhood eczema (an early sign of allergies) in their infants. By eating probiotic-rich foods and maintaining good intestinal flora, a person can also help to maintain a healthy immune system.

Probiotics can help obese people who have received weight loss surgery to maintain weight loss. And in a study of post-partum women who were trying to lose abdomnial fat, the addition of lactobacillusand bifidobacterium capsules helped reduce waist circumference.