Probiotics and Prebiotics

Probiotics and Prebiotics. This is a new topic which we study under bacteriology subject. Now you might think why we study these topics? What's the need? What do bacteria have to do with all these probiotics and prebiotics? Well, let's talk about it.

Actually, when we talk about probiotics we are dealing with the nutritional part of our gut, or might as well say that we are talking about the bacteria of our gut microbiome ie. we are discussing the good bacteria that reside in our body, protecting and helping us in carrying out our daily healthy life without being noticed, and when we talk about prebiotics we are talking about the food that they need in order to survive in our gut, in order to flourish in our gut; cause you see when we do not eat our prebiotics daily and keep on eating junk food these good bacteria are not supplemented with their food, and you know what happens to an organism after they have been starved for a couple of days... they die. So same is the case with our good bacteria they get starved and get killed as they are time sensitive (so our good bacteria/ probiotics are time sensitive).

So let's get started with our topic-

Probiotics and Prebiotics 

Probiotics

These are the living microorganisms (bacteria) that reside in our body, especially in our gut, and help in contributing to our health.

These are our body's good bacteria ..... Now you might ask how?

We know till now you have heard about bacteria being the bad guy but let me tell you there are some good guys out there as well, well these are the bacteria that reside in our gut and our digestive system from start to end of it. All the food that we intake is broken down in our mouth with the help of our all saliva and mouth enzymes, stomach with the help of the digestive enzymes that are secreted (more than half of the food has been digested till now) and then enters our digestive track; over here the walls of digestive tract absorb as many nutrients as possible and also absorbs as much water as it can. Now the point comes about where do bacteria play a role over here?

Well, let me explain..... As we know when we eat we consume all sorts of digestive along with undigested foods (might as well say non-digestive food) so we consume digestive along with non-digestive food. Non-digestive foods are called prebiotics (I will explain this term later in the blog but for now just think about the food which can't be digested by our stomach). Non-digestive food (prebiotics) are foods that can't be digested by stomach acids and saliva. Now here's where the role of probiotics (good bacteria) comes. These probiotics ie. good bacteria help in breaking down this non-digestible food into simpler form for them (bacteria) to eat and survive in our gut and also help produce certain vitamins and minerals along with it which helps us.

How do we get our probiotics?

Well get your daily intake of probiotics from some commercially made products such as Yakult.

OR

You simply eat some naturally made/ available products or food items which will help provide your daily intake of good bacteria!!

• Yogurt- It contains healthy good bacteria in the genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium.
• Kimchi is from Korea. It is a pickled cabbage. It is prepared with red pepper sauce and various other ingredients. This is the local dish that they savor on a daily basis.
• Kefir- It is fermented milk similar to yogurt.
• Sauerkraut- It is fermented raw cabbage.

Probiotics are generally fermented products. And these probiotics are heat sensitive or we might as well say that they are temperature sensitive food. Because as we said earlier that probiotics are good bacteria and according to our knowledge we know that let it be good bacteria or bad bacteria they get killed after they are heated. So if we heat or cook any of the above ingredients we are killing the bacteria

What is prebiotics?

As we said earlier that prebiotics are undigestible food mostly carbohydrates (fibers) which a human can't digest but bacteria can!!! Bacteria break down these into simpler substances which help them to survive, they use or consume this undigestible food for their survival, and in return provide us with vitamins and minerals and help digest our food. So in the end prebiotics are the food material for our gut microbiome.

Must read: Micropropagation in Plant Tissue Culture

How do we get our prebiotics?

You will get some prebiotic supplements available on the market, but you can also get prebiotics from some foods

• Oats 
• Banana
• Garlic 
• Onion

As we discussed above the heat or temperature sensitivity of the probiotics, you might ask does the same thing applies to prebiotics?
Well no, prebiotics are generally fibers they are not living entities, so prebiotics are not heat sensitive or temperature sensitive. Plus you might be fascinated that as probiotics are time sensitive ie. if probiotics do not get their food (prebiotics) they might die, so probiotics are time sensitive, but prebiotics are not. Prebiotics are not time sensitive at all.

So are probiotics and prebiotics linked?

Yes, definitely! because we need these probiotics (good bacteria) to digest our food and provide us with vitamins and minerals and if we want that to happen, their population should be maintained in the gut (because their population is time sensitive ie. they die after a period of time) by providing them with their food ie. prebiotics, which helps them to grow in population and reside in our gut, and carry on digesting our food for us.

Advantages of probiotics and prebiotics

1. Probiotics help in good digestion and absorption of food.

2. Helps provide us with certain vitamins (vitamin K) and minerals that our body can't make on its own.

3. With the help of prebiotics the good bacteria population in our body flourishes and thus helps keep the growth of bad bacteria at bay.

4. Probiotics help stimulate immune maturation and minimize inflammation.

5. Good bacteria help promote a strong immune system in an individual.

6. Probiotics can also help prevent and treat diarrhea which is caused by infections or antibiotics.

Conclusion

 In this blog, we studied about what probiotics and prebiotics are, and how they are interlinked to each other. We also went through what are the most common naturally made prebiotics and probiotics. 

We saw how their time to time intake is beneficial for our health for maintaining a normal healthy lifestyle.