Probiotics are now being considered for use in treating many digestive (and even non-digestive) health conditions and diseases. Two such diseases in which probiotics have been studied are the inflammatory bowel diseases ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. These conditions involve chronic inflammation of the intestines. Crohn’s disease primarily involves the lower small intestine, but may involve the entire digestive tract. Ulcerative colitis involves the rectum and large intestine, or colon (hence the name colitis—meaning inflammation of the colon).

A recent double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study found that in addition to standard treatment, a high-potency, multistrain probiotic improved symptoms. Equally important, it also improved appearance of the colonic mucosal lining in patients with relapsing mild-to-moderate ulcerative colitis compared to those patients only receiving standard treatment.

This is the strongest study to date on probiotics for ulcerative colitis and joins a growing body of evidence for their beneficial effects. Because ulcerative colitis is a serious disease, effective treatment is important. If you have ulcerative colitis, talk to your doctor about using probiotics. Want to learn more before you do? Tune in for my PBS Special The Road To Perfect Health, now airing on your local PBS station.

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For many years now scientists have been studying how the balance of good and bad bacteria in the gut can contribute to, or influence all kinds of chronic diseases. Diseases such as IBS, Chron’s, colitis, even diabetes, asthma and liver disease. But recently coming into the limelight is research showing that your gut bacteria, specifically the type you have, may be making you fat.

Recent research performed by Cornell University microbiologist Ruth Ley has shown that obese people have a different mix of bacteria in the gut than skinny people. When she fed gut bacteria from obese mice to sterile mice, they got fat, but when the sterile mice consumed the gut bacteria from skinny mice, they gained very little.

The theory behind this is that certain microbial populations allow the body to harvest more calories from food. Over time this could contribute to weight gain. The bacteria found in obese individuals and the one believed to cause this effect belonged to a particular microbial subgroup, hydrogen-producing bacteria known as prevotellaceae.

This research is still in the early stages, but some studies suggest that altering or modifying the gut bacteria may result in weight loss. One way to do just that would be to take a high potency probiotic supplement like Renew Life’s Ultimate Flora 50 Billion that could crowd out this unwanted obesity bacteria. This is not to say that this bacteria is the only factor by any means in obesity.

Adding a good probiotic supplement to your weight loss regime could prove helpful.

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