Probiotics: Your Natural Way to Good Health!

By Ken P Silvers

Even though we've learned much about probiotics during the last 20 years, there is still much to explore about how specific strains of bacteria affect human health; this is one of the most exciting fields of medicine today. And the best part, it's all natural.

Probiotics promote a low pH in your stomach which is good since harmful bacteria and Candida cannot thrive in an acidic environment. Probiotics also stimulates digestion of lactose which is beneficial if you are lactose intolerant.

Probiotics daily

You need a daily dose of friendly bacteria to maintain a healthy balance in your gut. In earlier times people got probiotics from wild berries, fermented vegetables, and yogurt. But today's fast-food culture and pasteurized milk products is not supporting your gut the natural way; most people need a good probiotics supplement for optimal health.

Some good foods that stimulate the growth of probiotics are onion, garlic, oatmeal, fermented or cultures vegetables, yogurt, asparagus, bananas, red wine, Spirulina, aloe vera juice and many others. Best are organic products (USDA) as they are free of most pesticides. Traditional probiotics like yogurt have a positive effect on your mouth, throat and airways.

Prevent growth of bad bacteria

Among other things, probiotics produce lactic acid that prevents harmful bacteria to grow. Several strains of probiotic bacteria also produce hydrogen peroxide which has proven effective against some bad bacteria strains of Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, and yeast infections like Candida.

Probiotics perform an amazing job in your body: They attach themselves to the walls of your intestine and consume nutrients that otherwise could feed harmful bacteria. Left without food sources bad bacteria will not grow or harm the lining of the intestine. Probiotic bacteria also produce an antiseptic substance that protects the lining of the intestine.

If you take a good probiotics supplement and eat healthy you will enjoy a well balanced intestinal microflora; this affects the health of your whole body. The precise mechanism between the different strains differs as to how and where in your body they produce protective substances. That's why it's important to supply your gut with several of the healthy strains of bacteria. Many supplements contain 5, 10 or more different strains.

The best probiotics

Producers of probiotics have lately focused on the intestine. A definition of good probiotics is this: Probiotic strains that survive the transfer through your stomach and reach into the intestine. Traditional probiotics in yogurt or kefir don't seem to survive the journey through your stomach; just a small amount reaches the intestine alive. But they are still health-promoting; dead probiotic bacteria contain lactic acid, hydrogen peroxide and nutrients that are released from dead bacteria.

Daily use of probiotics

If you use probiotics right, they will increase in your body until they reach their optimal level. This optimal level is a delicate balance in your body that you can maintain by healthy eating and by using a good probiotics supplement daily.

To reach the full effect and to keep your body working optimal it's not enough to take probiotics now and then; this is too sporadic to reap the full benefits. But with daily use it has a positive effect on your overall health and will help combat many health problems.

Eat prebiotics to support probiotics

Prebiotics are oligosaccharides-these are two or more sugar molecules connected to each other in a chain. Why is this important? Because prebiotics stimulates the growth of probiotics; you can find prebiotics in milk, tomatoes, bananas, oat, garlic and honey and other foods.

The reason prebiotics are important is that these sugar molecules don't get digested in your stomach but reaches the intestine where the good bacteria feed on them. Don't eat too much oligosaccharides though; you could get problems with gas. You might have experienced this when eating too much beans.

Combining a healthy diet with a good probiotics supplement is one of the most beneficial life-style changes you can make. I hope it will be a natural way to good health also for you as it has for me.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6764802

How to Use Alcohol for Health

By David D Collie

Since the beginning of man there has been an attraction to ferment foodstuffs to produce alcohol. Alcohol is the most misused drug in the world with its excessive use causing untold misery to families, individuals and communities. It's financial and social costs are huge and it causes a greatly increased death rate from accidents and health related illnesses. Yet its widespread use is still condoned by most communities in the world and there seems little hope of that changing. Prohibition tried many years ago in America did not work.

For years the "French Paradox" where a nation with a high intake of saturated fats also had a low rate of coronary heart disease puzzled the medical world. One explanation was they also had a high red wine intake. While it is problematical that this is the only reason it did lead to a number of studies on the effect of alcohol on health. The end result of these studies shows quite conclusively that a moderate alcohol intake does reduce the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke. This article discusses this in more detail and outlines how alcohol can be used to give a positive health outcome if is consumed in moderate amounts.

This article is not written to encourage people to drink but it is saying drink in moderation and the benefits are likely to outweigh the negatives. Doctors have known for years that the occasional drink could be better for health than complete abstinence. Moderate alcohol consumption has been shown by many studies over recent years to have better health and longevity outcomes than total abstinence or heavy drinking. In terms of alcohol type, red wine has been marginally better than beer which has been marginally better than spirits.

While some of these differences can be put down to antioxidant type compounds there does seem a beneficial effect from the alcohol itself as a number of studies show

Some of these studies are. 

• Alcohol Benefits Begin at 33: Dr Chris Power - Lancet 2004
• Reaping Alcohol's Benefit: National Institute of Health - June 2004 Clinical & Experimental Research
• Moderate Alcohol Consumption could help protect women against Osteoporosis: St Thomas Hospital- July 2004 Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases
• A glass of wine a day keeps prostate cancer away: Janet Stanford - Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, Seattle. USA
• Regular drink helps the heart after surgery: University of Heidelberg, Germany - Oct 2004 Heart
• Glass of wine for longer life: Leisure World Cohort Study - Sept meeting 56Ih American Academy of Neurology
• Alcohol may fight heart attack damage: Dr Rod Korthuis - University Missouri-Columbia ( published study)
• Alcohol helps older women's grey cells: Dr Graham McDougall - University of Texas 5 year study
• Compounds found in wine could inhibit Alzheimer's: Dr Michikatsu Sato Govt Alcohol R&D Centre,.Japan - Journal of Bioscience Biotechnology and Biochemistry Vol 67

How many drinks provide just the benefits and not the harm? It depends on whether a person is most at risk of heart disease, diabetes or breast cancer. But there is one bottom line: Five or six drinks only on Saturday night will provide no benefits, while a drink or two a night might.

The analysis by the National Institutes of Health sorted out a plethora of sometimes conflicting research on alcohol's effects. The review was prompted by cardiologists' complaints that patients suddenly were asking if they should start imbibing, and how much. Other research is overturning the dogma that people at risk of diabetes should abstain; still more links even light drinking to breast cancer.

Adding confusion, people are vulnerable to more than one disease as they age. A 50-year old woman with breast cancer in the family might get very different advice on alcohol than one who's pre-diabetic with high cholesterol.

The review states we are not encouraging anybody to start drinking alcoholism remains a major health problem, and people with liver disease may not tolerate even moderate drinking.

Instead, the review is aimed at people who already drink some and concludes that to get alcohol's potential health benefits, how much those people can consume must be customized by their age, gender and overall medical history.

As population-wide advice, consuming two drinks a day for men and one a day for women is linked to lower mortality and unlikely to harm, the review found men shouldn't exceed four drinks on any day, and women three - bingeing is simply bad.

But review's disease-by-disease findings provide better details: 

• Studies consistently show that in people 40 or older, consuming one to four drinks daily significantly reduces the risk of heart disease, the nation's leading killer. In contrast, five or more drinks daily markedly increase the heart risk.
• However, frequency seems the key; consuming smaller amounts several times a week - one or two daily or every other day - is most heart-protective. It apparently takes low, regular alcohol exposure to help raise levels of the body's so-called good cholesterol, the HDL type, and to thin blood.·
• The alcohol-breast cancer link remains controversial. Some studies suggest a small increase in risk that roughly 9 in 100 non drinkers may get breast cancer by age 80, compared with 10 in 100 women who consume two drinks a day. Per person that's a tiny risk. But women whose mothers or sisters had breast cancer, or those taking post-menopausal estrogens replacement are at greater risk from alcohol. Those women must weigh the fear of breast cancer against their risk of heart disease in deciding whether to avoid alcohol.
• One to two drinks a day several days per week seems to lower the risk of Type 2 diabetes, a disease rising at epidemic proportions. Low levels of alcohol apparently help the body use insulin to process blood sugar better. The benefit was seen among the overweight and those with "metabolic syndrome," a cluster of pre-diabetic weight-related symptoms that include high blood pressure and poor cholesterol.
• There's no known safe level of alcohol consumption during pregnancy, but what about while breast-feeding? Nursing mothers who want an occasional drink should consume it several hours before the next feeding, enough time to metabolize the alcohol so little reaches the infant. And contrary to folklore, alcohol does not aid lactation but temporarily decreases milk production.

How much is a drink a day? 140 ml of wine, 340 ml of beer or 42 ml of distilled spirits is generally accepted as the standard. That is a glass of wine or a small bottle.

A study recently in Spain showed a significant weight loss from the consumption of red wine in moderation. Of all the alcohol types red wine seems the most desirable. This likely because of the presence of resveratrol in red wine, a compound that has been shown to have definite health benefits and is available in many health food shops in a capsule formulation.

So to sum up, heavy drinkers have the worst outcomes but moderate drinkers, that is, 1-3 drinks for men and 1-2 for woman on a daily basis, have a better life expectancy and health outcomes than total abstainers.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6767526