CM’s Pick – What is a pro-biotic drink?
We are all health-conscious these days. And so we are all very particular about the sort of food that goes into our system. A lot of health drinks in the market promise to make you fitter, leaner, meaner, healthier and any other quality you may desire to be. A lot of that advertising leaves us confused about what most of those drinks really contain and why they are healthy. Or how they help us to keep fit and lean. Just like Vikash here is wondering on Answers – What is a pro-biotic drink?
I really liked the answer Tygress has sourced from Wikipedia:
A pro-biotic drink is a drink that contains active cultures (live bacteria) in it. This is intended to help you digest food better. Your stomach naturally contains bacteria that digests food, but sometimes you do not have enough of it. Yogurt is one thing that contains active cultures, all brands, not just Activia. Activia just has a different strain of bacteria in it than other standard yogurts.
Do you know anything more about pro-biotic drinks? Whom are they most useful for? Answer away or leave us a comment.
Does this make you feel like indulging in some yogurt immediately?
Here are some recipes you can use:
This is really the beauty of Answers. Everyday you learn something new and that’s always useful, isn’t it? 
About CM’s Pick:
Ask a question that is interesting and chances are your question will feature in a new section called Community Manager’s Pick or simply CM’s Pick. The answerer that the CM judges the best will also be featured on the blog! At the end of the week, after a lucky draw, two Answerers (one asker of question and one answerer) will win 100 additional Answers points!
So keep Asking and Answering.
Bhumika Anand
Community Manager
- Rating:
(3 votes, average: 5.00) - Permalink
- Comments (4)
Loading ...
Probiotics are friendly bacteria for our digestive systems. These help reduce the growth of harmful bacteria and promote a healthy digestive systems.Diary products-fluid with milk,drinkable and squeezable yogurts can inprove our digestive systems.
They are friendly bacteria which defeat the disease causing ones in our digestive system.
Especially those ones cause diarrhoea and other digestive problems.These probiotics are available in curd ,yogurts,buttermilk etc.
commercially available in capsule forms,powders along with prebiotics which keep alive the spores of probiotics for a long period.
In a nutshell these probiotics improve the presence of intestinal flora which are essential for proper digestion of food without causing any upsets.
Scientific understanding of probiotics and their potential for preventing and treating health conditions is at an early stage, but moving ahead. In November 2005, a conference that was cofunded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and convened by the American Society for Microbiology explored this topic.
According to the conference report, some uses of probiotics for which there is some encouraging evidence from the study of specific probiotic formulations are as follows:
To treat diarrhea (this is the strongest area of evidence, especially for diarrhea from rotavirus)
To prevent and treat infections of the urinary tract or female genital tract
To treat irritable bowel syndrome
To reduce recurrence of bladder cancer
To shorten how long an intestinal infection lasts that is caused by a bacterium called Clostridium difficile
To prevent and treat pouchitis (a condition that can follow surgery to remove the colon)
To prevent and manage atopic dermatitis (eczema) in children
The conference panel also noted that in studies of probiotics as cures, any beneficial effect was usually low; a strong placebo effect often occurs; and more research (especially in the form of large, carefully designed clinical trials) is needed in order to draw firmer conclusions.
Some other areas of interest to researchers on probiotics are
What is going on at the molecular level with the bacteria themselves and how they may interact with the body (such as the gut and its bacteria) to prevent and treat diseases. Advances in technology and medicine are making it possible to study these areas much better than in the past.
Issues of quality. For example, what happens when probiotic bacteria are treated or are added to foods — is their ability to survive, grow, and have a therapeutic effect altered?
The best ways to administer probiotics for therapeutic purposes, as well as the best doses and schedules.
Probiotics’ potential to help with the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the gut.
Whether they can prevent unfriendly bacteria from getting through the skin or mucous membranes and traveling through the body (e.g., which can happen with burns, shock, trauma, or suppressed immunity).
Side effects and risks
Some live microorganisms have a long history of use as probiotics without causing illness in people. Probiotics’ safety has not been thoroughly studied scientifically, however. More information is especially needed on how safe they are for young children, elderly people, and people with compromised immune systems.
Probiotics’ side effects, if they occur, tend to be mild and digestive (such as gas or bloating). More serious effects have been seen in some people. Probiotics might theoretically cause infections that need to be treated with antibiotics, especially in people with underlying health conditions. They could also cause unhealthy metabolic activities, too much stimulation of the immune system, or gene transfer (insertion of genetic material into a cell).
Probiotic products taken by mouth as a dietary supplement are manufactured and regulated as foods, not drugs
Side effects and risks
Some live microorganisms have a long history of use as probiotics without causing illness in people. Probiotics’ safety has not been thoroughly studied scientifically, however. More information is especially needed on how safe they are for young children, elderly people, and people with compromised immune systems.
Probiotics’ side effects, if they occur, tend to be mild and digestive (such as gas or bloating). More serious effects have been seen in some people. Probiotics might theoretically cause infections that need to be treated with antibiotics, especially in people with underlying health conditions. They could also cause unhealthy metabolic activities, too much stimulation of the immune system, or gene transfer (insertion of genetic material into a cell).
Probiotic products taken by mouth as a dietary supplement are manufactured and regulated as foods, not drugs
one get probiotic bacteria even from eating different kind of fruits. Eating fruits is safest option for most people.