Most people that have any of the common digestion problems are lacking in either probiotics or digestive enzymes. These digestive problems can be everything from heart burn, diarrhea, constipation, nausea, and gas to more serious concerns like diverticulosis and ulcers. Both probiotics and enzymes are essential for breaking down the food we eat into usable caloric energy. But, it is often very impossible to know which one of these we are lacking. In many cases we are lacking in both.
Probiotics are the friendly bacteria that live within the digestive track of all humans. These friendly bacteria are needed to break down the food we eat. When we lived and ate on the farm probiotics were plentiful in our diets, but with all the processed foods we eat today much of these good bacteria are eliminated from our diets. And every time we use any type of prescription antibiotics these probiotics in our system are killed off by the prescribed antibiotics. Many good doctors and good pharmacist recommend replenishing your probiotics after the use of any antibiotics. When purchasing a probiotics the refrigerated products are much more accurately dosed than the non-refrigerated products. I would also focus in on a product with at least 5 billion activity per dosage.
Digestive enzymes break down the food we eat. Without digestive enzymes we would die. It is believed by many people that we have a limited amount of digestive enzymes at birth and once they are used up we can no longer producer any more. Like probiotics, when we ate whole and raw foods generations ago we replenished our enzyme reserve continuously, but today we get very little naturally occurring enzymes in out diet. If you purchase an enzyme product make sure you get an enzyme complex. This means an enzyme product that has enzymes for digestion of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.
I have seen vast improvements in almost all kinds of digestive problems when people commit to supplementing daily with both probiotics and digestive enzymes. This is not an immediate cure, so give it a good month to see dramatic benefits.
David Oromaner is a vitamin, herb, and nutritional supplement specialist with over 25 years experience in the health and wellness industry. He is a certified personal fitness trainer and bodybuilder with 25 years of experience in these areas of health and fitness. He owns a company called Guaranteed Supplement Designs that specializes in development and distribution of cutting edge natural products such as the natural sleep aid GuaranteedToSleep.
If you like this article you can read more at his Healthy Notes blog.