Benefits of Combining Prebiotics with Probiotics
Probiotics are living strains of bacteria that add to the population of good bacteria in your digestive system.
Prebiotics are specialized plant fiber that acts as food for the good bacteria. This stimulates growth among the pre-existing good bacteria.
Now that we have that covered … Why do we need Probiotics and Prebiotics for a healthy, clean and functioning Microbiome?
We may need to know first what is a microbiome? The microbiome is defined as the collective genomes of the microbes (composed of bacteria, bacteriophage, fungi, protozoa and viruses) that live inside and on the human body. Also note that microbiomes also live outside of the gut. There are communities of microbes just about everywhere like on the skin, in the mouth and in the vagina.
So now that you know about these gut functions. You should know they live in harmony in our bodies and preform many functions that we can’t pull off without them. These include digesting certain foods and producing certain nutrients. When “not so good” microbiomes enter the body beneficial microbiomes ward them off to keep the body from invasion and thus infection.
Probiotics are live and active cultures grown in a facility for the specific purpose of harmonizing with the body’s natural microbiome. These are found most often in capsule form. Some probiotics require refrigeration; others are shelf-stable.
The microbes in probiotics are transient, meaning they pass through the body and do not typically form permanent colonies in the gut. Which is why taking probiotics consistently is important—the probiotics you take today won’t stick around for long.
Prebiotics feed on fibers that our bodies would not otherwise digest like inulin and certain oligosaccharides.
Supplementing with both probiotics and prebiotics together is beneficial since science suggests that the prebiotics may help improve the viability of the probiotics as they make their way through the gut. You may find the word “Synbiotic” that is used to describe supplements that contain both prebiotics and probiotics.
Time to HEAL. RESTORE. DIVERSIFY.
