My father was diagnosed with bowel cancer early in 2010. During that anxious year I researched long and hard to find a prevention/cure for this disease and a subject that kept coming up was the use of probiotics to keep a healthy balance between good and bad bacteria in the gut. Claims that these probiotics can prevent colon cancer, lower cholesterol/blood pressure, improve immunity, help IBS and colitis, reduce inflammation and much more are very exciting, although research is ongoing and inconclusive. Tests carried out on rats seem to be quite successful. I began to research this in more detail, fully intending to write a piece about the virtue of eating live yoghurt every day to stay healthy. But my research led me to a slightly different conclusion.
So what are probiotics? The majority of bacteria are not harmful and are known as nonpathogenic bacteria, comprising more than two-thirds of all the bacteria on earth, found on and in everything, from skin, to water, to our stomachs. Nonpathogenic bacteria actually are necessary to the healthy functioning of any life form, assisting with vital functions like digestion. They are constantly moving through our systems, and cause no harm, except in very rare circumstances. Harmful bacteria, however, known as pathogenic (disease carrying) bacteria, can cause incredible damage to our bodies, including death.
It is impossible to avoid harmful bacteria but the key here is balance: a healthy gut will have 85% good bacteria and the problems arise when we have too little. It’s not so much a case of harmful bacteria being on the increase but more a problem of the good bacteria being destroyed: tap water, antibiotics, birth control pills and many other modern drugs cause damage to the intestinal flora, thereby upsetting the balance.
Furthermore, our poor diets of fast, over-processed foods, high in sugars and saturated fats do not help maintain the correct percentage of good bacteria, which led me to looking at the role of diet and this is where I found prebiotics. This refers to certain fruit and vegetables containing substances (inulin) that help improve the health of pre-existing good bacteria. In a BBC experiment, two groups of people were given a probiotic or prebiotic diet. The result? The prebiotic group managed to increase their good bacteria numbers by 133 million, small in bacteria terms, but an encouraging effect. The probiotic group saw little change over the week, but over a longer period there’s evidence that they can make a difference.
Prebiotics foods high in inulin include dandelion leaves (dandelion & burdock – excellent for detox, by the way), Jerusalem artichokes, chicory, bananas, garlic, onions and leeks. Add some live yoghurt every day, avoid foods high in sugar and saturated fats and take some regular exercise if you want to live to a ripe old age, disease free.