In recent years, correlations have been found between the intake of probiotics and a healthier immune and digestive system. What you may not have realized is just how far reaching these newfound benefits go.
Probiotics have been associated with a wide range of health-related issues including acting as an effective agent to promote weight loss to neutralizing various allergies and alleviating serious mental illnesses such as depression. Let's review the top 4 ways in which a probiotic can start to dramatically improve your health and fitness results.
Weight loss
Probiotics are suggested to prevent as well as treat diarrhea. This inevitably strengthens the digestive system, which is critical for the assimilation of nutrients. To take it full circle, the better your ability to properly digest and assimilate nutrition, the better likelihood of you feeling full. This will, in turn, help with a healthy weight. What's more, probiotics may support an increased metabolic response.
It's also suggested that probiotics may prevent the absorption of dietary fat in the intestine. So, they just may help you look fitter, younger, and healthier. (1)
Hair Loss
An alarming number of people, men and women alike, suffer from excessive hair loss.
This may be due to our hectic, stressful lifestyles or possibly due to our unhealthy diets. Probiotics may boost your immune system, making it more resistant to those environmental and dietary factors that may support hair loss.
Studies suggest that probiotic usage may be associated with a decreased occurrence of hair loss. (2)
Food Allergies & Skin Conditions
More and more people are becoming prone to food allergies and these allergies may show themselves via skin ailments. This may well be because of our heavily processed, artificial and imbalanced dietary choices.
Due to the positive role that probiotics play with the immune system and the positive boost they give to gut flora, they just may be the key to overcoming certain food allergies and skin conditions. Studies suggest that probiotics have been incredibly successful in reducing the severity of certain skin allergies such as eczema. Some probiotics may also prevent or reduce inflammatory responses in people with milk or dairy allergies. (3)
Depression
Probiotic supplements have been suggested to help in improving some mental health conditions including depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder.
It is often argued that gut health is linked to mood and mental health. As discussed earlier, probiotics strengthen our immune system and it is believed that this link to immunity may boost mental health.
One study showed that taking probiotics for eight weeks may help in decreasing depression levels significantly. This evidence is invaluable for those who lead a stressful life and are likely to fall prey to depression. (4)
Conclusion
Convinced of the amazing benefits of probiotics? Ready to start your probiotic supplement program? Check out our entire probiotic collection here.
References
- Jaclyn M. Omara, Yen-Ming Chana, Mitchell L. Jonesb, c, Satya Prakashb, c, Peter J.H. Jonesa. Lactobacillus fermentum and Lactobacillus amylovorus as probiotics alter body adiposity and gut microflora in healthy persons. Journal of Functional Foods. Volume 5, Issue 1, January 2013, Pages 116–123.
- Tatiana Levkovich, Theofilos Poutahidis, Christopher Smillie, Bernard J. Varian, Yassin M. Ibrahim, Jessica R. Lakritz, Eric J. Alm, and Susan E. Erdman. Probiotic Bacteria Induce a 'Glow of Health' PLoS One. 2013; 8(1): e53867. Published online 2013 Jan 16.
- Kuitunen M. Probiotics and prebiotics in preventing food allergy and eczema. Curr Opin Allergy Clin Immunol. 2013 Jun;13(3):280-6.
- Ruixue Huang, Ke Wang, and Jianan Hu. Effect of Probiotics on Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Nutrients. 2016 Aug; 8(8): 483. Published online 2016 Aug 6. doi: 10.3390/nu8080483