So Now “Postbiotics” Are Good For Me?

I get it. It seems like every other week there’s a new trend in the nutrition space…curcumin, Omega-3s, black seed oil, probiotics and psychobiotics, etc…It can be confusing and hard to keep up. Recently, clients have been asking about postbiotics…what are they, when do you take them, why do you take them and what do they help with? So here we go…a brief explanation of the current research!

To begin, let’s take a step back to review what prebiotics and probiotics are to help tie in postbiotics and how they may be useful. Probiotics are live microorganisms that can have a beneficial impact on your health if consumed in adequate amounts. According to the National Institutes of Health, there are an estimated 100 trillion different microbial cells living in our gut. These microorganisms can be bacteria, viruses, fungi, helminths, and archea, however bacteria comprise the majority of the microbiota. Most of these bacteria are harmless, while others are either helpful or can cause disease. The helpful or beneficial bacteria can influence your metabolism (weight loss), enhance your immune function, improve your digestion and the health of your skin, and reduce the risks of some diseases. The harmful bacteria can be ok as long as they stay in smaller numbers. However, when their numbers increase and the amount of the beneficial bacteria decreases, the harmful bacteria can begin to exert their negative effects on your health. Harmful bacteria have been linked to a number of diseases that include inflammatory bowel disease, metabolic syndrome, obesity, heart disease, colorectal cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. A healthy microbiota strengthens the integrity of the gut and therefore, strengthens our overall health.

How then, you may wonder, do these numbers of helpful vs harmful bacteria get out of balance? Or, how does the harmful bacteria increase and cause disease? There are a number of reasons this can happen. Our diet has a huge influence on the landscape of our gut and the organisms that reside there. You can ingest probiotics by choosing to consume foods that contain them, such as yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, tempeh, kimchi, miso, natto, and traditional (not cultured) buttermilk. You may also choose to take probiotic supplements. Choosing a probiotic supplement can be overwhelming, as there are a large number of products to choose from. Knowing which probiotics are helpful for a specific condition can help you narrow your products. Or, you may choose a multi-strain probiotic supplement. Either way, when choosing a supplement, know that they are not regulated by the FDA. So, be careful of false claims, ask your nutritionist or health care provider if the supplement looks like a good choice, and try to find brands that use third party testing. If you have ever taken antibiotics, especially for longer lengths of time, you may have noticed some unpleasant symptoms such as diarrhea. Usually this occurs because the antibiotics kill the harmful and commensal bacteria in your GI tract, which throws off the gut balance. Eventually, the effects of antibiotics may allow harmful bacteria to thrive.

Prebiotics are sometimes confused with probiotics, however prebiotics are the foods that fuel the microflora . Prebiotics are usually in the form of fiber…they are non-digestible carbohydrates found in foods like bananas, onions, garlic, soybeans, artichokes, chicory root, leeks, asparagus, barley, oats, apples, and cocoa. Beneficial microbes can then ferment these prebiotics, which leads to the production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) that can have multiple beneficial effects throughout the body.

And finally, we have postbiotics. The term postbiotics has been defined by the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) as “a preparation of inanimate microorganisms and/or their components that confers a health benefit on the host.” Basically, this refers to the left over waste created from your body digesting both prebiotics and probiotics. Because evidence of postbiotics health benefits to the host/human has been accumulating, the interest in developing postbiotic products as foods, therapeutics, etc…has also been increasing. However, while we wait for the scientific community to guide us on how to use these products in the future, for now the best way to increase the amount of postbiotics in your system is to increase your intake of fermented foods and foods containing probiotics.
N. Zastrow