I have come to understand that good gut health is very important... the hard way.
My wife used to have very bad morning sickness when she was expecting our first child. She will not only throw up in the morning but also throughout the day. We always joked that perhaps it can't be classified as morning sickness but all-day sickness (of course after her 1st trimester when her vomitting ceased, as if she had the mood to joke when she is "merlion-ing")
The anti-nausea pills prescribed by her gyanae didn't help. So, we resorted to alternative medicine. The natural therapist gave her probiotics and from there I learnt that probiotics are beneficial bacteria that keeps your gut healthy. Sounds yucky right, taking BACTERIA! But good ones of course. Yup! that's right. You need GOOD bacteria in your gut to have a healthy you.
When you have a healthy gut, you can digest food, absorb food nutrients and have a better immunity. That was the first time I really understood probiotics and the need for good probiotics to maintain good health. That was a good 7 years ago. And I have been hoping to find a good probiotics in the market.
To begin with, everyone has good bacteria in their gut. Problems start to occur when these good bacteria starts to reduce. Apparently, consumption of antibiotics wipe out all the bacteria in the gut, whether good or bad and that badly upsets the condition in the gut. Also, stress, illness, poor diet, lack of rest, environmental conditions, low water consumption will greatly affect the good bacteria in your gut. I guess the more I know, the more I know I need a good probiotics.
Whenever, I think of probiotics, the image of Felicia Chin holding that bottle of V****** saying how the live prebiotics culture helps in keeping you healthy pops up (not that I am a fan of Felicia, but the fact of how misleading advertisement can be scares me). The fact that V****** has sugar in it already greatly discounts the fact that the bottle is going to help you. Cos sugar is actually food for the bad bacteria! To me, the sugar is more for marketing purposes and to appeal to the public more than having any real functions.
Later, I also learnt that is getting good bacteria to reach our intestines is really not an easy task. When we feed good bacteria through our mouth, it first needs to survive the very acidic conditions in our stomach. Those strains of probiotics that survive this first cut will then make their way down our intestines. Most strains of probiotics will already die while making the long journey down your intestines. When the probiotics reach the intestines, it makes no point for them to just sit around there. They need to multiple themselves to create the balance in our gut system.
Not all probiotics are created equal. And only a handful of strains can actually achieve the feat of surviving the long journey down the gut system. Ha ha, my chance to impress you (*wink wink*) You will need the strains of probiotics under the LGG and BB-12 to really get the good benefits of live probiotics you take. So next time, you consume yogurt or some other probiotics, turn to the ingredients to look out for these star strains.
While we take the probiotics daily to maintain our good gut health and to increase our immunity, sometimes, I wonder if it really helps. I do notice much less burpy, much less bloated feeling after meals, much less gas output (if you know what I mean). But I can't possibly cut myself open to see if the good bacteria is growing or not right!
I guess the ultimate test for me was when my mum-in-law had upset stomach yesterday. She told me that she had already been to the toilet for a couple of times and still having diarrhea and pain in the abdomen. I asked her to take 1 pack of the probiotics that contain the star strains. Half an hour later, viola! She says the pain and the gas in her abdomen is gone. She didn't have to visit the toilet after that the whole day.
It's amazing how the good bacteria works and I am glad I found a good brand of probiotics that work! Will be happy to recommend to you too.
