Taking a prebiotic supplement and probiotic supplement together can be additionally beneficial to your digestive health – but as will be discussed further, what you really don’t want to do is take a probiotic supplement only.
Prebiotics are found in the plan fibers of different foods that we don’t digest, but instead pass straight through to the colon where they are able to provide food and stimulate the growth of select beneficial bacteria.
Examples of food sources with prebiotics are: different unrefined raw grains like oats, barley, and wheat, as well as chicory root, Jerusalem artichoke, berries and bananas, onions, and asparagus.
Probiotics are actual live bacteria found in the digestive tract that are referred to as ‘good bacteria’, because of the many health benefits these bacteria can give to us. Do note a couple of things: (1) probiotics, unlike prebiotics, are not natural foods; they are all man-made (2) you already have good bacteria in your system.
Examples of probiotic foods are those made through a fermentation process, like yogurt, miso, tempeh, and different soy products, and sauerkraut. Since these are man-made, and without standards or requirements for their probiotics content – if you do want to add probiotics to your system, then you want to take a probiotics supplement to have better certainly for what you will actually be getting.
Prebiotics And Probiotics Relationship
Prebiotics and probiotics have a synbiotic relationship for your digestive health – the prebiotics provide the nourishment and environment for the probiotics to thrive, while the probiotics provide numerous health benefits because of their ability to now grow and not be taken over by harmful bacteria.
But do understand that probiotics are not necessary for this relationship to exist, because you already have good bacteria in your digestive tract; the probiotics supplement are to for making an addition to these for various reasons. For instance, when you take antibiotics for a bacterial infection, the result is that all of the bacteria good and bad are killed. So taking a probiotics supplement after your antibiotics would be beneficial to replace the good bacteria.
On the other hand, without taking a prebiotics supplement to feed any of the good bacteria that you may have naturally, or have gotten from addition through a probiotics supplement, they will continue to be overcome by the bad bacteria that you also have.
A Prebiotics Supplement Is So Much More
Yes, a prebiotics supplement is very beneficial for your digestive system and your health from how it selectively feeds the good bacteria, while doing nothing for the bad bacteria – but it is so much more than that.
Let’s consider the kiwifruit, which is the food source for the prebiotics supplement that I take. The fruit itself is a very good source of prebiotics, but the skin that I am not eating is a very good source for phenolics – which is another critical component to having balanced digestive health.
What are phenolics? These are compounds that prevent the bad bacteria in your digestive tract from continuously replicating and taking over the good bacteria. Talk about synergy and key synbiotic relationships – the prebiotics feed the good bacteria so they can grow, while the phenolics inhibit the reproduction of the bad bacteria that is trying to kill them off.
And that is an example of how your prebiotics supplement is going to help provide you with the best digestive health possible – and something that a probiotics supplement alone could not do.
