Preventing The Stomach Flu

The intestines work on a majority rules playing field. If there are more good guys than bad guys, the good guys win. If a virus, bacteria, or yeast can grow to a majority state, they will make toxins that allow them to take over. This is when we get sick.

Our modern grocery store is limited in live fermented foods. We have Kombucha, Buttermilk, Kiefer, and yogurt. Fermented foods such as cucumbers and sauerkraut are heat pasteurized. They taste good, but it kills the healthy bacteria off.

The change of light lowers our vitamin D levels and our immune system reduces effectiveness. We are in doors with the cold weather and we are in ever closer contact with viruses. We can do a lot to prevent the stomach flu by keeping our healthy bacteria at a very high level. When harmful pathogens enter our digestive tract the healthy bacteria can eliminate them.

This brings up a manufacturing conversation that can get lively at seminars. How alive are the probiotics in the capsule and how effective are they? There is a tradeoff. Probiotics that are alive for a very long period in a capsule may have very little healthy activity in your intestine. Probiotics that are effective may not live in a capsule. How do you get a balance of effectiveness with shelf life?

Research is done on probiotics to test their activity level for eating bacteria, yeast, and viruses.

For example, probiotic Bifidum is the most common probiotic in your intestine. It will eat the following pathogenic bacteria: H. Pylori, Hemolytic E. Coli, Kreusii, and Staphylococcus aureus.

When mixed with probiotics such as Breve and Longum we can protect ourselves from Candida albicans yeast and organisms such as Clostridium difficile, and Yersinia enterocolitica.

How do you know what you are buying is alive and what is on the label is in the pill? We know of two companies that guarantee the label in writing. One is a pharmaceutical company Anabolic, and the other is Perque who has every shipment tested in a laboratory to verify the label matches the product.

The Perque product is the one we use, called Digesta Guard Forté.

Digesta Guard Forté 10 contains 5 billion colony forming units of 10 viable, live cultured bacterial strains: all in one veggie cap. Grown on a rice medium, they are dairy-free, hardy enough to withstand stomach acid, implant right away in the gut and multiply to provide a healthy balance of micro-flora required in the digestive tract.

I never thought of the stomach acid destroying the bacteria before it could get into the intestines. It is nice to know someone is thinking it through.