Probiotics and Your Immune System

It’s a fact: Probiotics improve your health by enhancing your immune system. You can think of probiotics as friendly bacteria, which not only stimulate the health of your digestive system, but also stimulate a healthier immune system.

Current research shows that until we’re born, our bodies are totally free of microbes. But once the body exits the womb, it’s bombarded by microbes. Before long, there are ten times as many microbes in our body as there are cells comprising our entire body! What’s more, there are “good guy microbes” and “bad guy microbes.” The bad guy microbes are the ones responsible for causing disease.

But the good guy microbes, introduced into the body by probiotics, cooperate with your immune system by crowding out the bad microbes. By taking up room where the bad microbes would otherwise be found, they keep the bad ones from multiplying.

But probiotics do so much more than this. For instance, one study found that some strains of a probiotic called bifidobacterium decreased harmful bacteria and prevented them from invading the body’s cells. This same strain also killed off certain forms of salmonella (a bacteria responsible for food poisoning).

Another study showed that people given a probiotic supplement suffered from colds an average of two days less than those people who suffered from colds without the supplement. The reasons: the probiotics actually activated the test subjects’ defense cells contained within the immune system.

In truth, probiotics create their own antibiotics—without the need for introducing other antibiotics into your system (something that might actually be harming your body’s immune system).

Probiotics are capable of creating natural substances, which hinder disease-causing organisms from spreading. In addition, the byproducts of probiotics create a more acidic digestive tract, thus disrupting pathogenic reproduction. This is important as we age, because with the years comes a decrease in the amount of stomach acid which otherwise kills many harmful bacteria.

Is it any wonder that a person with a healthy population of probiotics tends to feel healthier?
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