Prebiotics: How to feed your family’s friendly gut flora

© 2009 – 2022 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved

Like opens in a new windowprobiotics, prebiotics are a pop new food condiment.

Should your family be consuming them?

Experiments suggest that prebiotic supplements are safety. They are probably healthful, as well.

Hither is an overview of the subject: What prebiotics are, where you tin can find them, and why yous might want to make them a regular part of your diet.

What are prebiotics?

Nutrients for the probiotics colonizing your body

Retrieve of them as food for the "friendly" bacteria in your gut.

Prebiotics are difficult-to-assimilate food ingredients that can be metabolized pastprobiotics, the beneficial microorganisms living in your digestive tract (Gibson and Roberfroid 1995).

To date, most research has focused on certain oligosaccharides, in particular:

• fructooligossacharides (FOS)
• galactooligosaccharides (GOS)
• inulin

These are actually carbohydrates, albeit carbs that humans can't assimilate. The only energy we get from FOS, GOS, and inulin is provided by our gut flora.

Bacteria in the colon ferment the oligosaccharides, producing brusque-chain fatty acids, lactate, and gas. The process provides us with a bit of free energy, simply not much: FOS and inulin yield about ane.five calories per gram (Niness 1999).

A diverseness of bacteria can metabolize the nondigestible oligosaccharides. However, two groups–the probioticbifidobacteria andlactobacilli–seem to thrive on these prebiotics.

In experiments where people take consumed prebiotic oligosaccharides, the composition of their gut flora changed. The numbers ofbifidobacteria andlactobacilli increased at the expense of pathogenic bacteria, likeE. coli (see beneath).

Where you'll observe prebiotic oligosaccharides

Additives

Considering of their pleasant taste characteristics and depression-calorie condition, FOS and inulin have been added to many food products. Inulin has a creamy, fatlike texture that makes information technology a good fatty substitute. Y'all'll observe it in many tabular array spreads, salad dressings, and dairy products. Oligofructose (a FOS) tastes sweet, and is near xxx% as sweetness as sucrose. Oligofructose has been added to some dairy products and baked goods (Niness 1999).

Natural sources

Oliosaccharides are constitute in breast milk, which may partly explain why breastfed babies experience fewer infections (Boehm and Moro 2008).

FOS, GOS, and inulin are as well establish naturally in these foods:

• Onions
• Garlic
• Milk
• Apples
• Bananas
• Cabbage
• Wheat
• Oats
• Artichokes
• Asparagus
• Leeks
• Chicory

What is the evidence in favor of consuming prebiotics?

Controlled, randomized studies advise thatlactobacciliandbifidobacteriasupplements  are effective treatments for childhood diarrhea and antibiotic-induced diarrhea. Probiotic supplements may be helpful for other ailments as well.

As a result, researchers have reasoned that increasing quantities oflactobaccili andbifidobacteria already in the gut–past feeding them prebiotic oligosaccharides–would produce similar benefits (Roberfroid 2000).

There'south show from breast milk, too. Breast milk contains oligosaccharides. These prebiotics stimulate the growth of beneficialbifidobacteria in the gut, and may explain why breastfed babies suffer fewer infections than exercise formula-fed babies.

So the question is: Do prebiotics supplements really produce the desired changes in gut flora? Researchers endeavor to answer the question past feeding people prebiotics and then analyzing their stools.

Randomized, controlled experiments on adults take demonstrated that prebiotics supplements increase the proportion of "good" bifidobacteria in stools (e.g., Depeint et al 2008; Kolida et al 2007).

Studies of formula-fed babies have yielded similar results.

Testing fortified baby formula

In ane randomized, double-blind study, formula-fed newborns were given i of two treatments.

• Feedings with prebiotic-fortified infant formula (0.iv g/100 ml prebiotic galacto- and long-chain fructooligosaccharides)
• Feedings with standard infant formula

Researchers monitored the babies for 12 weeks. Both groups experienced similar growth rates. Still, the oligosaccharide-treated babies had fewer diarrhea-causing bacteria in their stools (Costalos et al 2008).

Some other, like experiment constitute that babies receiving fructooligosaccharides in their formula had more bifidobacteria in their stool and fewerE.coli (Kapiki et al 2007).

And an earlier experiment compared the stools of infants who'd received fortified baby formula with the stools of breastfed babies (Knol et al 2005).

In this case, some babies were given formula with .8 g/100 ml GOS/FOS in a ratio of 9:one. Compared with babies given standard formula, the treated babies produced stools that independent more bifidobacteria and waste products associated with breastfed babies. The results have been replicated since then (Holsher et al 2012).

These are just a few examples. Not every study has reported statistically significant results. But the weight of the evidence seems to favor the utilize of prebiotics.

As Günther Boehm and Guido Moro conclude

"The data clearly demonstrate that prebiotics of nonmilk origin can mimic the prebiotic consequence of breast-feeding, and this has positive consequences for the postnatal evolution of the immune system"(Boehm and Moro 2008).

Other benefits

In improver to stimulating the growth of probiotics, oligofructose and inulin have other benefits. For example:

• Nondigestible oligosaccharides conduct like dietary fiber, and may confer some of the benefits of fiber (Roberfroid 1993).
• Nondigestable oligosaccharides appear to help the body absorb calcium and magnesium (Elia and Cummings 2007).
• Different probiotics, prebiotics are easy to use. Probiotics are living organisms. For probiotic supplements to work, you must insure that the probiotics are still viable. By contrast, prebiotics are carbohydrates. They tin exist cooked or frozen without damaging their healthful properties (Gibson and Rastall 2004).

In addition, prebiotics might help probiotics "take concord." Researchers suspect that probiotics may be more constructive when combined with prebiotics (Kaur et al 2009).

But watch the dose…

Nondigestible oligosaccharides are widely accepted equally rubber food additives. Only to achieve any prebiotic effects, people demand to consume at least 5 grams a mean solar day.

How much is too much? Experiments propose that adults tin swallow up to 30 grams a day without side furnishings. Higher doses are associated with gas and intestinal discomfort. Doses exceeding thirty grams / twenty-four hours might besides benefit the bad bacteria living in your intestinal tract (Gibson and Rastall 2004).

More information

You can read more than aboutprobiotics in this evidence-based article, opens in a new window"Probiotics for kids with diarrhea and other ailments: Scientific prove"

For a conceptual overview ofprebiotics, check out Glenn Gibson's and Marcel Roberfroid'southward influential review newspaper for the Journal of Nutrition, opens in a new window"Dietary modulation of the man colonic microbiota: Introducing the concept of probiotics"

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References: Prebiotics

Boehm Thousand and Moro G. 2008. opens in a new windowStructural and functional aspects of prebiotics used in infant nutrition. J Nutr. 138(9):1818S-1828S.

Costalos C, Kapiki A, Apostolou M, Papathoma Due east. 2008. The effect of a prebiotic supplemented formula on growth and stool microbiology of term infants. Early Hum Dev. 84(1):45-nine.

Depeint F, Tzortzis Thou, Vulevic J, I'anson K, and Gibson GR. 2008. Prebiotic evaluation of a novel galactooligosaccharide mixture produced by the enzymatic activity of Bifidobacterium bifidum NCIMB 41171, in healthy humans: a randomized, double-blind, crossover, placebo-controlled intervention study. Am J Clin Nutr. 87(three):785-91.

Elia M and Cummings JH. 2007. Physiological aspects of free energy metabolism and gastrointestinal effects of carbohydrates. Eur J Clin Nutr. 61 Suppl one:S40-74.

Gibson GR, McCartney AL, and Rastall RA. 2005. Prebiotics and resistance to gastrointestinal infections. Br J Nutr. 93 Suppl 1:S31-four.

Gibson GR and Rastall RA. 2004. When we eat, which leaner should we be feeding? ASM news 70(5): 224-231.

Gibson GR and Roberfroid MB. 1995. Dietary modulation of the human colonic microbiota: Introducing the concept of prebiotics. Journal of Nutrition 1401-1412.

Holscher HD, Faust KL, Czerkies LA, Litov R, Ziegler EE, Lessin H, Hatch T, Sun Southward, and Tappenden KA. 2012. Effects of prebiotic-containing infant formula on gastrointestinal tolerance and fecal microbiota in a randomized controlled trial.JPEN J Parenter Enteral Nutr. 36(1 Suppl):95S-105S.

Kaur IP, Kuhad A, Garg A, and Chopra K. 2009. Probiotics: depiction of prophylactic and therapeutic benefits. J Med Food. 12(2):219-35.

Kolida Due south, Meyer D, and Gibson GR. A double-blind placebo-controlled study to establish the bifidogenic dose of inulin in healthy humans. Eur J Clin Nutr. 61(10):1189-95.

Niness KR. 1999. Inulin and oligofructose: What are they? Journal of Diet. 129:1402S-1406S

Scholz-Ahrens KE , Schaafsma G, Heuvel Due east, and Schrezenmeir J. 2001. Effects of prebiotics on mineral metabolism. Am J Clin Nutr. 73(suppl):459S-464S.

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Source: https://parentingscience.com/prebiotics/

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