20 December, 2005
Welcome! This blog will bring you all the latest info from the world of probiotics!
The mammalian intestine is home to a bewildering variety of bacteria and often to some unwanted protozoan parasites too. Given that there are approximately 10 trillion human cells and 90 trillion bacterial cells in us we could be regarded as walking fermenters that have been manipulated by other lifeforms to meet their own needs for food and shelter. There are perhaps as many as 1000 different species of bacteria in our Gastro-intestinal Tract (GIT) weighing as much as 1.5 kg. About 70% of these bacteria have never been grown in laboratory media and have not been identified. Advances in DNA fingerprinting are giving us some insight into what is going on inside us but there is a tremendous amount of variation from individual to individual. This means that treating people with bowel problems can sometimes be problematic. Research has shown that if you take a group of say 10 people, they may all share only one organism in common. Everyone's profile of bacteria is unique and tends to stay with us for our entire life. Our microflora, aided and abetted by our immune system tend to reject invaders and the whole system resists purterbation. That is unless we take antibiotics, which have the capacity to eliminate whole groups of bacteria from our GIT. The result can be an imbalance that can result in an overgrowth situation, not only in the colon, where most of the bacteria live, but in the small intestine also. These overgrowths have been shown to play an integral role in the etiology of autoimmune diseases and food sensitivities. More of which later.
The mammalian intestine is home to a bewildering variety of bacteria and often to some unwanted protozoan parasites too. Given that there are approximately 10 trillion human cells and 90 trillion bacterial cells in us we could be regarded as walking fermenters that have been manipulated by other lifeforms to meet their own needs for food and shelter. There are perhaps as many as 1000 different species of bacteria in our Gastro-intestinal Tract (GIT) weighing as much as 1.5 kg. About 70% of these bacteria have never been grown in laboratory media and have not been identified. Advances in DNA fingerprinting are giving us some insight into what is going on inside us but there is a tremendous amount of variation from individual to individual. This means that treating people with bowel problems can sometimes be problematic. Research has shown that if you take a group of say 10 people, they may all share only one organism in common. Everyone's profile of bacteria is unique and tends to stay with us for our entire life. Our microflora, aided and abetted by our immune system tend to reject invaders and the whole system resists purterbation. That is unless we take antibiotics, which have the capacity to eliminate whole groups of bacteria from our GIT. The result can be an imbalance that can result in an overgrowth situation, not only in the colon, where most of the bacteria live, but in the small intestine also. These overgrowths have been shown to play an integral role in the etiology of autoimmune diseases and food sensitivities. More of which later.
