Your gut is one of the most important parts of your body. It allows for digestion and absorption of nutrients from food. It also contains a symbiotic community of microorganisms that can affect your health in a number of ways. This is called the “microbiome”, a diverse community of organisms that work together to keep your body healthy. Your microbiome is made up of things called “microbes”, which come in the trillions on and in your body.
One type of microbe found inside the body is gut flora: the community of bacteria, yeasts, and other microorganisms that live in your gastrointestinal (GI) tract. You may not realize it, but the balance of these microorganisms in your gut has a huge impact on your digestion, immune system, mood, and even weight. A healthy gut is able to better absorb nutrients, handle stress, and fight off infections. An excellent way to improve these microorganisms in your gut and help improve your digestive health is by including probiotics in your diet.
Vitalpax offers a comprehensive portfolio of probiotics, with strains backed by clinical studies and specially developed to support digestive health. These probiotics may help support a well-balanced, diverse intestinal environment, and have beneficial effects on the GI tract. But first, let’s discuss what exactly probiotics do and why they’re one of the most popular supplement health products in the market today.
What are probiotics?
The word “probiotics” literally means “for life” or “in favor of life”. They are a combination of live, beneficial bacteria that are naturally present in your body. Bacteria is usually viewed in a negative light as something that makes you sick. However, you have two kinds of bacteria constantly in and on your body — good bacteria and bad bacteria. Probiotics are made up of good bacteria that helps keep your body healthy and working well.
It’s important that you have the right balance of good vs. bad bacteria in your system for it to properly function. Your diet can affect the balance of good to bad bacteria in your gut, so it’s essential to work on maintaining a healthy ratio in your GI tract. This in turn supports your immune system, your digestion, and your overall wellness.
How do probiotics work?
The main job of probiotics is to maintain a healthy balance in your body. When you get sick, bad bacteria enters your body and increases in number, creating imbalance. Good bacteria works to fight off the bad bacteria and restore the balance within your body, helping you feel better.
Good bacteria also keeps you healthy by supporting your immune function and controlling inflammation. Certain types of good bacteria can also (1):
- Help digest food and absorb nutrition
- Fight off bad bacteria
- Create vitamins inside the body
- Help prevent bad bacteria from entering your blood
- Breakdown and absorb medications
There is currently a large amount of research happening around the idea of what probiotics can do for your health. Studies have shown that increasing the intake of probiotics (through food or supplements) can help improve the following conditions (1):
- Diarrhea (from antibiotics and infection)
- Constipation
- Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)
- Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
- Yeast infections
- Urinary tract infections
- Gum disease
- Lactose intolerance
- Eczema (atopic dermatitis)
- Upper respiratory infections (ear infections, common cold, sinusitis)
- Sepsis (specifically in infants)
In addition to these benefits, probiotics may also help with weight management and heart health, and skin health. Each strain of probiotic bacteria is unique and benefits different area of the body. There are some cases where different strains can compete with each other and lose their effectiveness, so It’s important to know which probiotic strains go together to maximize the benefits of the probiotic you’re taking. Not sure which strains to combine? Give us a call and we’ll help you create your ideal probiotic formula.
How do I take probiotics?
There are so many different strains of probiotics on the market, so it’s important to know what they do. According to Harvard Medical School, the following are the most common strains of probiotics found in food and supplement products (2):
- Lactobacillus acidophilus
- Lactobacillus bulgaricus
- Lactobacillus casei
- Lactobacillus gasseri
- Lactobacillus plantarum
- Bifidobacterium bifidum
- Bifidobacterium lactis
- Bifidobacterium longum
- Enterococcus faecium
- Saccharomyces boulardii
Lactobacillus produces lactic acid and helps control the bad bacteria in our gut. It also helps with the body’s mineral absorption (3). Bifidobacterium, also known as lactic acid bacteria, supports the immune system by limiting the growth of bad bacteria in the intestine (4). Both help break down lactose.
You can increase the amount of good bacteria in your body through foods, drinks and supplements. You may already have certain foods in your daily diet that contain probiotics, like fermented foods (yogurt and pickles) or fermented drinks like kombucha (fermented tea) or kefir (fermented dairy drink) that introduce extra probiotics into your diet.
However, for those who do not have access to these foods, supplements offer a convenient alternative to improving your probiotic count. Probiotic supplements can come in a variety of dosage forms, most popularly as capsules, tablets, powders, and liquids. They can also be available as part of a base food or beverage.
Vitalpax offers probiotic solutions that are perfect building blocks for creating custom health products, formulations, and delivery formats that offer effective benefits that appeal to consumers and help your brand stand out. Whether you’re looking for high-end products or cost-effective solutions, our experienced R&D team can help you develop custom probiotic formulations that meet your consumers’ needs – and exceed their expectations.
As one of the leading supplement contact manufacturers in the US, we also create private label and custom sports nutrition products, dietary supplements, and food formulas. Our GMP certified and FDA approved facility is ready to take on any project – large or small – while guaranteeing fast delivery times, stringent quality testing, and competitive pricing. Contact us to learn more about our probiotic offerings and our other services today.
- Cleveland Clinic. “Probiotics.” 3 Sept. 2020, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/14598-probiotics.
- Harvard Medical School. “The benefits of probiotics bacteria.” Harvard Health Publishing. 7 Jun. 2017, https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-benefits-of-probiotics.
- Pessione, Enrica. “Lactic acid bacteria contribution to gut microbiota complexity: lights and shadows.” Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology vol. 2 86. 22 Jun. 2012, doi:10.3389/fcimb.2012.00086, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3417654/.
- Ruiz, Lorena et al. “Bifidobacteria and Their Molecular Communication with the Immune System.” Frontiers in microbiology vol. 8 2345. 4 Dec. 2017, doi:10.3389/fmicb.2017.02345, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5722804/.
