Beneficial Effects of Probiotics Essay

If you have had recurrent infections and taken antibiotics repeatedly to treat them, you may need to repair your gut. Your gut contains around 70 percent of the immune cells active in your body at any given time, and gut flora play a role in your immune function. Antibiotics kill not only bad bacteria, but also good ones. Probiotics can help your gut recover from the abuse so your immune function can recover from having taken

The health benefits of maintaining bacteria in the gut are a topic of interest. Grocery store shelves are stocked with probiotic goods such

If you're like many other people (including myself till I started researching this), you might only have a vague idea about what a healthy gut is. You likely know there are bacteria in your gut, that antibiotics destroy those bacteria and that you need to eat yogurt to put those bacteria back. You likely don't know you need to eat special yogurt containing active live cultures to bring bacteria back in your

Over the years, there have been several studies published on the health effect of yogurt and the bacteria that companies use to produce yogurt. There have been studies done on animals and humans to investigate the benefits. According to The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, “the United States uses lactic acid producing bacteria known as (LAB) which

Our formula also contains prebiotics. These guys are what feed the good microbes and help them repopulate. So, while the probiotic is kicking the bad microbes’ butt, our prebiotics, which use a unique combination of Mannan-oligosaccharide (don’t even try to pronounce it) feed the good guys helping them do their job more efficiently.

More than a century ago the notion of microbiota working as a regulator for health and disease was already in use. They realized that consuming large amounts of fermented milk helped with their longevity. This began the foundation of probiotics. However, the oral probiotics that are used today are at a lower amount than what is contained in the colon. After cycling through the digestive system it is

Probiotics, literally meaning pro life, is the name given to a group of live beneficial microorganisms found today in many foods as well as in supplement form. Examples of probiotics include Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidum bacterium and Bifidus regularis. Our bodies are already comprised of the beneficial microorganisms found in probiotics but external factors often significantly reduce or eliminate

The use of probiotics falls under the term “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), a term that encompasses a large number of different health care practices and products that are used with, or in place of, conventional medicine. CAM is the main focus of the National Center of Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), a center within the National Institutes of Health, which is itself an agency of the U.S. Department of Health. [1] The NCCIH’s role is to define the usefulness and safety of CAM and the role it has on improving health and healthcare practices. [2] However, the NCCIH does not provide any regulation on the use of CAM practices or products.

Escherichia coli is a Gram-negative rod that was tested on ten different biochemical testing procedures. The Escherichia coli culture on the MacConkey agar had growth and experienced fermenting of lactose (color change to yellow). This is an expected result because this agar only grows Gram-negative bacteria so it is a selective media. The bile salts and crystal violet are the agents that make the agar select against Gram- positive species. The pink tint is probably from the precipitation of bile salts. The Bacillus subtillis is a Gram-positive bacterium so it was not supposed to show growth or fermentation, but it showed growth without a color change (no lactose fermentation). This was due to the over streaking of maybe Escherichia coli or Enterococcus durans, which are Gram-negative species. Staphylococcus epidermis had a growth along with a yellow to orange color change. Media too was clear.

Non-refrigerated probiotics are easier to get a hold of. They can be found at the drugstore or supermarket(Dyke 1). Non-refrigerated probiotics are a plus to people who don't want to wait around for 2 weeks for refrigerated ones. Companies claim that refrigerated probiotics are 'unstable' because they lose their viable bacteria if at room temperature and urge people to purchase non-refrigerated probiotics ("Do Probiotics Need to Be Refrigerated?" 1). Lactobacillus acidophilus can be found in some of these probiotics.(Terry 1). These are contained in shelf stabled, non-refrigerated probiotics such as Bartell drug brand, Rite-Aid, and Natrol acidophilus. Another non-refrigerated probiotic; Kyo Dophilius contains other beneficial bacterias such as Bifidobacterium infantis and Lactobacillus gasseri which helps boost the immune system (Wasserman 1).

Lactobacillus is a bacteria that exists naturally in the body, primarily in the intestines and the vagina. Lactobacillus helps maintain an acidic environment in the body, which can prevent the growth of harmful bacteria. Lactobacillus it is "friendly bacteria."

Is it possible that probiotics or other microbe based treatments could offer a new alternative to

Little over a century ago, Ilya Ilyich Metchnikoff, a Ukrainian biologist, identified the benefits of gut-friendly bacteria present in fermented dairy products. Metchnikoff was the first person to identify the relationship between a healthy gut microbiota and a person's general health. (Mackowiak, 2013) In recent years, as consumers, we have been overrun with commercial probiotic supplements, which come in different forms including powder and capsules. Countless research studies have been carried out into the supposedly miraculously beneficial effects of commercial probiotics on our gut microbiota. For every claim made by the food manufacturers of these miracle health-giving products there is a counterclaim casting doubt on the validity of these. This essay will endeavour to address two questions: firstly, is gut bacteria important and secondly, are externally administered commercial probiotic supplements beneficial to our gut microbiota and are they indeed, as is often claimed, paramount to maintaining good health?

L. bulgaricus are used as starter cultures during yogurt fermentation and are regarded as probiotics (Perna et al, 2008)

Live Lactobacillus casei Shirota strain, cultured and tested in our laboratory, is added to the tank. The temperature of the tank is then reduced until the contents are at 37°C (body temperature). The solution is allowed to ferment in the tank for 6-9 days or until the numbers of Lactobacillus casei bacteria reach their ideal concentration.