It’s an overcrowded neighborhood – that’s how I would describe the human gut or digestive system (for those who are overly technical). You see, there are more than 500 species of bacteria that are residing in an adult gastrointestinal tract. That’s especially true in the large bowel. And they don’t just live with us – they also help us! When it comes to keeping the not-so-friendly and disease causing bacteria while keeping our immune system healthy as well as maintaining the lining of the bowel, these friendly and healthy bacteria are unparalleled.

However, due to some circumstances, the normal balance of good and bad bacteria in our body gets disrupted. It can be caused by different like drinking contaminated water, viruses that spread from one host to another, and other foreign organisms in our bowel, regular intake of antibiotics and that’s just to name a few.

So what do we experience when that happens? The normal function of our bowel gets upset. And we get symptoms like diarrhea, abdominal cramps, bloating, and myriads of other not-so-pleasant conditions that you sure don’t want to experience. So how can we minimize the damage done by upsetting the balance between good and bad bacteria? Well, taking probiotics…increasing the levels of good bacteria is the way to go!

You see, through research and study, it has been found that taking probiotics – the live and active ones, can help greatly in improving one’s health and preventing conditions that are plaguing millions worldwide. True, there are some far-fetched claims about what probiotics – like curing bad breath, high cholesterol, menstrual complaints…it seems that they can do just about anything!

Let’s see what probiotics can do REALISTICALLY!

According to a group of Australian gastroenterologists who researched the effects of probiotics on different diseases (they reported their findings on the Medical Journal of Australia), there is very good evidence that probiotics work well against different conditions that cause diarrhea. One of them is viral infectious diarrhea (especially the rotavirus) – which is the common cause of severe diarrhea in children. When given to victims of viral infectious diarrhea along with rehydrating fluids, probiotics work well in reducing the duration of diarrhea by an average of 1.2 days. Among the different probiotics around, Lactobacillus rhamnosus is the most effective.

Along with that, the chances of getting diarrhea after taking antibiotics are dramatically reduced by taking probiotics. You see, about one in four persons who take broad spectrum antibiotics gets diarrhea. However, with the help of Lactobacillus rhamnosus as well as Sacharomyces boulardi reduces the chances of getting that condition dramatically. Matter of fact, about 269 children in one study has reduced the chances of getting diarrhea by 10 percent after taking Sacharomyces boulardi.

And those are just some of the researches and studies showing how effective probiotics are when it comes to preventing not just diarrhea but other digestive illnesses and conditions that are plaguing people all over the globe.