Probiotics - why continue after re-populating?
 

I understand the theory of why we need probiotics after antibiotics. I don't understand, though, why people continue to take them regularly. If the little buggers have been given a place to live and a supply of food, shouldn't they just continue to multiply? In reading a bunch of customer reviews online, it seems that many people need to continue to take them.

Or think they need to take them, or, their diet is not healthy and allows for the bad bacteria to flourish faster than the good so need to resupply themselves with probotics

I don't know other than suspecting that bad habits keep depleting the population. How the heck can you tell? :lol:

What would a bad diet or bad habit look like from the perspective of the human "biome"? Sugars and simple starches would have been absorbed higher up in the digestive tract, so I don't think they'd have much of an effect. According to some of the writing on resistant starch, low carb diets fail to provide enough food for the biome to thrive.

I haven't lost faith in low carb because I feel much better on it, but it looks like some low carb advocates are turning toward "safe starches" because they've shifted their focus from the hormonal effects of food to the importance of maintaining a population of good gut bacteria.

Send some shiritaki noodles down there. Apparently the insoluable fibers in them are good for the GBs. (Gut bugs)

In looking for the study of healthy volunteers who regularly ate probiotics in the form of fermented foods and showed a marked decrease in intestinal populations when they went probiotic free for a time, I found the study below that says that at least some probiotics set up shop in our systems.

Volunteers who were having colonoscopies had their colon walls tested for the presence of the probiotic strain.

http://aem.asm.org/content/65/1/351.full
Persistence of Colonization of Human Colonic Mucosa by a Probiotic Strain, Lactobacillus rhamnosusGG, after Oral Consumption - Minna Alander1, Reetta Satokari1, Riitta Korpela2, Maija Saxelin2, Terttu Vilpponen-Salmela3, Tiina Mattila-Sandholm1, and Atte von Wright1,*



Here's another study that says there is colonization
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC348788/
Colonization and Immunomodulation by Lactobacillus reuteri ATCC 55730 in the Human Gastrointestinal Tract by N.Valeur etal.

I've stopped looking for that other study.

well
 

you can only assume that whoever takes probiotics, its because they feel that their body is better with probiotics, meaning- function well, less sympthoms of whatever.., etc. or because they really need it-> while/after taking severe antibiotics, trying to make up lacks there were created due to bad nutrition/eating habit, etc.)

Modern living (antibacterial cleaners and cleansers, not working in dirty environments, regular handwashing), mean we're not replenishing our gut bacteria as we used to. The bacteria didn't just get into our intestines and then multiply in isolation, they were regularly topped up by bacteria from our environment.

Add to that the fact that for many of us our gut bacteria is composed of less healthful species that thrive on sugars and take hold after antibiotics - fixing our bacteria takes a multi pronged approach which includes artificially replenishing our gut bacteria if the way we live doesn't allow for natural replenishment.

That's true, Leemack. I would imagine H&G's have lots of soil-based organisms because they live closer to it all.

I suppose one could lower the amount after repopulating?

Good point, leemack.

Do probiotics give anyone else gas? I guess combining it with the glucomannan and RS is probably doing that to me.

I think the short answer is, "No one really knows for sure." And not just in some sort of pedantic scientist fashion but in a real practical way. Science is just scratching the surface of this, just getting started.

We don't even have a near complete list of the bugs that are in our gut. That's important. Until we do, we can't know what is ”normal". We can speculate all we want, come up with whatever theory we want and no one can say it's wrong.

Here's my theory which no one can disprove: "They're giving them the wrong probiotics." Its not that they're bad, in fact some of them probably do help. However there are possibly some foundational bugs that support the main bugs and without those foundational buugs the main bugs die then must be replenished.

What evidence do I have? None that would stand up in court but I have noticed, um, stable gut states that go along with certain weight loss rates. This implies that there is some sort of hystorisis between stable states. Probiotics disturb the gut bio màkeup but they do not shift it to another stable state.

Maybe.

Oh, I got an answer to my question:
Got gas?

Richard Nikoley said in several places that adding potato starch gave him gas, so I was expecting gas in the form of flatulence.

I've been burping a lot since starting this. I don't understand why. It seems like the little buggers are producing gas too high in my digestive tract. I wonder what it means that I'm burping. Is it normal to have bacteria living in your stomach? I thought they were supposed to reside in the colon primarily. I'm not taking the probiotic and potato starch at the same time, so it's not that.

I was just talking to the vet about this since my cat won't touch food with Fortiflora (daily dose forever w/IBD) on it, but likes Florentero (7-10 day dose, which comes from Italy but is cheaper in the long run and Dweezil needs to eat!). Both are human-grade probiotics.

Evidently there are different strains of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium and some set up robust colonies that sustain themselves whereas other strains aren't as robust and die off faster than they can reproduce, so the colony will die off if you don't constantly add more. These are cheaper per pill and of course the pharmaceutical companies want you as a customer for life, not for a week or 10 days. Both have similar numbers of bacteria per pill/tablet, but the strains (sub species level, not indicated on the labels) are different.

If you eat sugar and other SAD crap, you feed the bad bacteria which overtakes the good bacteria. In this case the colonizing dose wouldn't work if you're constantly killing off the good bacteria, like most people on the SADiet. So this is why most North American pills, yogurt etc. use the cheaper dose strains instead of the robust colonizers. Also, most EU countries have public health systems, so they promote short-term remedies.