What are probiotics and what are the benefits?

Out gut is home to trillions of live bacteria that are responsible for digestion, hormone production and supporting a functional immune system, amongst other things. Lots of factors can influence the types of bacteria that live in our gut as well as how many of them we have, including the things we eat, the exercise we do and how stressed we are.

If you don’t have enough of the right strains of bacteria in the gut, you might find you have digestive issues, tiredness or low mood. That’s where probiotics are said to come in handy. Probiotics are simply strains of bacteria that come in drinks, tablets or powders, and the idea is that the organisms will colonise your gut to improve your gut health.

As Ruth Harvey, a dietician from Pod&Pea Nutrition, previously told Stylist, “If you are taking the right bacteria, at the right dose, in the right form and stored in the right way, evidence has shown that good bacteria will populate the gut.”

Gut health supplements: “I tried probiotics for 3 months – here’s what happened”