Yogurt Is Not Always the Best Source of Probiotic Bacteria
The “live active cultures” in yogurt may seem like a good source of probiotics, but there is no guarantee that they contain enough of these beneficial bacteria to benefit your health.
While good bacteria are critical to health, scientists are still trying to understand which probiotics work and how well. If you want to try probiotics, you’re better off buying supplements like pills than assuming you can get your dose from yogurt. Melinda Wenner-Moyer explains in Slate:
If your reaction to all of this is unimportant, I’ll just feed my kids yogurt, know that Sonia Michael, pediatric gastroenterologist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, told me that while yogurt can be beneficial, yogurt is “ fickle and fickle. a reliable source of probiotics. ” Even if the yogurt leaves a factory teeming with bacteria, the low pH of the mixture can kill them: a2010 study found that after 10 days of refrigeration, 70 percent of the probiotics in various types of yogurt had died. Indeed, although many yogurt brands advertise that they contain “live active crops,” they usually don’t say how many, andresearch shows that foods should provide 10 6 to 10 8 live crops per gram — that’s a huge amount. – have a positive effect.
Supplements that have been used in studies with good results include Culturelle and Florastor to counteract diarrhea due to stomach germs . For a more complete list of bacteria that help with various diseases, see Table 1 of this article from the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology . Follow the link below to learn more about probiotics, including whether they are good for healthy children.
Should Your Children Take Probiotics? | Slate
Photo by Indy Samarajiva
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