08 March 2010

Probiotics

One of the lay articles assigned for this week had said that Americans consume fewer fermented products that any other developed country and I agree with that author. Americans tend to turn to drugs when dealing with health issues, while Asian and European cultures stick to the more "natural" remedies. After reading that lay article that talked about probiotics in things like yogurt and fermented milk, I was curious because we had recently done an experiment to isolate microbes from yogurt in micro lab. So, I decided to try and search for the "best" brands of yogurt to eat. Instead I came across another article which talks about Kimchi, which is a spicy Korean dish that contains a strain of the probiotic Lactobacillus that was found to help reduce cancer cell growth. I'm not saying you should go and eat lots of Kimchi (because it's definitely not for everyone. I personally don't like it), but I just found this pretty surprising and interesting that such unexpected foods have promising health benefits, so I decided to share. Enjoy!


The full article can be found here:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123206305/HTMLSTART.
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2 comments:

  1. RosemaryB595March 9, 2010 at 12:40 PM

    In response to your comment about the best brands of yogurt: When I worked in a hospital in Virginia, the Director of Infectious Disease Control swore by Kefir. She told all employees that, if they ever had to take antibiotics, they should drink Kefir to prevent getting c-diff (clostridium difficile). C-diff is a bacterium that causes symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life-threatening inflammation of the colon. The spread of c-diff is common in health care settings because patients can carry c-diff with or without symptoms, and c-diff spreads quite easily. In addition, c-diff can proliferate with use of antibiotics. Apparently, when you take antibiotics, the "good bacteria" in your intestines is killed off and this can allow c-diff to proliferate. Since probiotics are “good bacteria,” consuming probiotics can help keep the balance of the bacteria in the intestines.

    I did a literature search, and apparently use of probiotics has been found to help prevent and treat c-diff. The link to this reference is below:

    McFarland, L. (2006). Meta-analysis of probiotics for the prevention of antibiotic-associated diarrhea and the treatment of clostridium difficile disease. American Journal of Gastroenterology, 101, 812-822.

    http://www.healingpediatrics.com/articles/C.diff%20probiotics.pdf

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  2. RyanDrakulichC495April 28, 2010 at 7:48 AM

    I would beg to differ with you on the opinion that Americans choose medications, more often than the natural products, than Asia and Europe. I can see Asia is some rural places finding the natural products that will help them. But, I feel as though every country that is capable of giving these drugs to their people, people tend to go after the drugs over the natural stuff. It is just human nature to get the quick fix and not choose a natural fix. I don't think it has anything to do with where you are from.

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