Dr. Clinton Sexton

Part #4 Probiotics

(Part B)

In Part A we went over Probiotics and now I will explain Prebiotics and how they affect your digestive health.

Prebiotics

WHY would you need to supplement with billions and billions of the same bacteria on a daily basis (taking a probiotic)? Why aren’t these bacteria living and thriving in your digestive tract? Why do you need to keep replacing them all of the time with a probiotic? This takes us to the subject of Prebiotics.

Prebiotics… “Bug-Food”

Prebiotics are the food source for the microflora (organisms) of your bowel. For simplicity I like to call of the organisms in the gut “bugs” and the food they like to eat “bug food” and prebiotics have gained a lot of attention lately.

What are prebiotics?  Prebiotics are essentially dietary fiber. You can feed your bugs with bug food that comes from your daily diet. Vegetables, fruits and grains all contain fiber that feeds your bugs. These foods contain indigestible fibers; this means YOU can’t digest them, but your bugs can.

In your digestive tract, these dietary fibers pass through your stomach and past your small intestine until they get to the large intestine. This is where most of your bugs live. If your small intestines are healthy and absorbing the nutrients your body needs, not much else should be arriving in the large intestine except for the things your body can’t directly use…this would be the fiber…bug food.

Now your bugs love this fiber, and they take it and turn it into food for themselves and convert it into food for the cells that line the intestines.

Your bugs take this fiber that you can’t use and turn it into something called short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) which your body can use; in fact, it needs these short-chain fatty acids. They are required for many healthy functions in the digestive tract.

“Bad” Bugs and Parasites

Ok, now let’s start putting this together. You need the good bugs and you can get these from probiotics and eating more whole fresh foods and fermented foods. However, just adding bugs to your digestive tract is not enough…they need to be fed. This is where the prebiotics come in. Bug food is basically fiber that you get from foods like fruits, vegetables and grains.

Your Gut is a Garden

You could compare this to gardening. In your garden you want to plant seeds (probiotics) but you need to have good soil and nutrients for the plants to grow (prebiotics). We do have one issue that we have not discussed and that is the problem of weeds. Weeds are plants that don’t belong in your garden and in your bowel, you may have weeds. What would weeds be, in your bowel? Harmful bacteria or parasites. Just as you would need to remove weeds from your garden, you need to remove harmful bugs from your bowels.

How do you know if you have weeds in your garden? You look at it, right? Weeds are identified be seeing them. So how do know if you have bad bugs in your bowel? The same way that you see weeds in your garden, they can be seen. No, you won’t see bad bugs floating in your toilet bowl, (well, you might if you have intestinal worms). The way to determine if you have bad bugs is to have a stool test done. A stool test can help determine if your digestion issues are due to bad bugs living in your bowel.

So, what would you do if you had weeds in your garden? You would pull them out and remove them. You would do the same with bad bugs in your bowel. In most cases, bad bugs can be eradicated though the use of natural supplements. How do you know which supplements to use? Many labs will be able to tell you which supplements to use depending in what type of bad bugs you have.

It is important to identify bad bugs and eliminate them. Just throwing more probiotics and prebiotics into your gut will not necessarily eliminate bad bugs. This would be like throwing more garden seeds and fertilizer on a garden full of weeds. You would not do that. You would remove the weeds first, then plant the seeds you want and nourish them.

Ok, so bowels are like a garden that must be tended. I hope this section on Probiotics was helpful and that you have a better understanding of how this works. There are a lot of probiotic and prebiotic supplements on the market and it can get a bit overwhelming.

You must also remember what I said in Section A of Probiotics…other factors will influence your bugs, including stress, medications, diet, nutrients, hormones and more. Probiotics and prebiotics are just one piece of the puzzle that affects women’s digestion.

Take a few moments and “digest” what you have just read. Save this email so you can refer to it.

If you think gut bugs are contributing to your digestion problems and you are not sure what to do, contact my office to set up a consultation.

I hope you have found the information in Part #4B of the Women’s Digestion Solutions helpful!

Health and Happiness,

Dr. Sexton

If you would like more information about women’s digestion, functional medicine or Dr. Sexton contact our Naperville office or go to www.napervilleintegratedwelness.com

Do your own research, inform yourself and ask lots of questions. When collecting information you MUST consider the source. There is no shortage of false, misleading, outdated, profit-driven and utterly biased information in healthcare today; even from the most respected sources and organizations.