thoughts on probiotics

I was out for a run through a local park; which I was really enjoying, especially through the wooded section of that park, full of the joys of life in the middle of nowhere I came across what was obviously a recently discarded Actimel drink single use plastic carton with its silver foil lid still on? This initially made me think it had been accidently dropped not chucked away, but alas no the foil lid had been closed back the way after the contents had been drank, this really saddened me who would do such a thing what sort of person thinks this is acceptable what sort of society do I live in? these were my immediate thoughts which changed to the sort of person that falls for that marketing trick is the sort of person who chucks away single use plastic cartons in local beauty spots!

I had to reflect on that because there was a time I also fell for that trick, it wasn’t truly all that long ago either! it had only been around four years previous to this that I had stopped buying these tasty probiotic pots, I used to put one of those in my muesli with some fresh fruit feeling smug about being super healthy, nowadays I get angry at myself for being so gullible then angry at my government for allowing the consumerist capitalist’s to con the general public into buying stuff their not needing, the single use plastic alone makes me mad finding single use plastic discarded makes me sad & mad

I’ve written other stuff about my society throwing rubbish around parks and pavements previously, this time it was the probiotic part that was angering me on that day, for simplicity’s sake, the probiotics we’re discussing are good microbes that we eat. If you take a look at a grocery store shelf, it’s obvious that probiotics are having a moment. But for all their modern-day trendiness, they had a slow start. They’ve been a part of human life for thousands of years, but nobody knew about them until about 150 years ago. And it took until the 1990’s for scientists to start researching them in earnest. Now, just 30 years later, not only do we know more about probiotics… we’re actually creating completely new probiotics, with incredible new functions. In the beginning, there was yogurt. Long before we could identify probiotic microbes with microscopes, people were eating fermented foods. Beer, wine, yogurt, cheese, kefir, etc. Fermentation wasn’t just tasty; it was also known to be healthy. an ancient Roman naturalist Pliny wrote how yogurt improved stomach health never knowing why or how it worked. for tens of thousands of years, we were: unknowingly using fermented foods to supplement our diet with probiotics The Bulgarians: The birth of an industry. Every field has its fearless creator. For probiotics? it’s 19th-century scientist called Ilya Ilyich Metchnikoff, the Nobel Prize-winner, director of the Pasteur Institute, the grand-daddy of probiotics During his travels across the Balkans in the late 1800's, Elie noticed that rural people in Bulgaria, despite a brutal climate and extreme poverty, lived much longer than rich European city-dwellers (many over the age of 100). After researching the modest daily lives of these people, Elie concluded that the X-factor in their lifestyle was a good bacteria found in the “soured milk” that was a staple of their diet. Elie used his conclusion to prescribe a treatment for old age: eating soured milk (a.k.a. yogurt) or alternatively by skipping the food all together and simply eating more of the good bacteria he found in it. With that, the first intentional probiotic was born! It was a turning point. From then on, people have been all about eating probiotics – good microbes – to benefit their health. Probiotic drinks. Probiotic supplements. Probiotic whatever. But like Elie’s experience with L. bulgaricus, these probiotics are eaten without knowing much about them. Even today, people still don’t know the specific type (the “strain”), behavior, or purpose of many of the probiotics we encounter. Why? Well, with all due respect to Elie, most serious microbiologists just didn’t care enough to focus on researching probiotic microbes. Instead, they were researching bad microbes – the ones that cause disease. The result was that early probiotics products just weren’t scientifically backed. It was a sad state of affairs. Mechnikov and his colleagues were so convinced that they began drinking sour milk, thereby introducing the modern probiotic, which means “for life.” Around the same time, another important discovery was made at the Pasteur Institute by Henri Tissier who isolated bifidobacterium from the gut flora of breast-fed infants. These bacteria, he observed, could lessen diarrhea in babies. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) definition of probiotics, issued in 2001 is as follows: “live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a beneficial health effect on the host.” There is still much to learn: for instance, one probiotic may not perform the same in different people due to different microbiota communities, immune status, and genetic makeup. It is an exciting time in microbiology as scientists work to reveal the specific talents in each microbe inside of you (we are all individual ecosystems for bacteria)

There are still a bunch of crude, non-scientific probiotics out there. Most of the products at the supermarkets are this way sadly, actually. but things are changing! Scientists weigh in, and probiotics are getting smarter! In the 1990’s, a new generation of scientists, armed with better technology and an appetite for new ideas, began researching the gut microbiome – the community of microbes living in our GI tract. They started to understand much more about how the microbes we eat interact with our bodies.

With more understanding came more respect for their potential, and more research money. In 2001, when the World Health Organization issued a formal definition of probiotics, it kick-started even more research. This has led to a series of microbial discoveries that have rocked the world These days researchers know how to more accurately identify microbial strains and to evaluate how each strain interacts with the body. They have learned that many microbes used as probiotics don’t even make it to the gut alive, but instead die when they encounter stomach acid, and that some microbes need extra “food” in the form of prebiotic fiber to thrive. And they have learned that too many of some species/strains of microbes in your gut actually isn’t a good thing, but can instead be bad for your health. With more scientific understanding, they will know which probiotic products do things differently, like - • Fully identifying probiotic strains • • Promoting survival through the gut by encapsulating against stomach acid or picking microbes known to naturally survive the trip; • • Including prebiotics in probiotic formulations to promote other good gut microbes; and • • Ceasing the “more is better” vision of probiotics and removing misleading labels touting “Billions of CFU’s!” although these modern probiotics still represent a minority in the sea of crude probiotic products on the market, they are a significant step in the right direction. But one thing didn’t change with modern probiotics: the intended goal – why people take probiotics in the first place. Ever since the days of Elie, crude and modern probiotics alike have promised the same thing: generic, catch-all benefits like “gut wellness” and “digestive health.” Recently scientists have started asking a new question: can we make probiotics do more? Can we use probiotics as tools to provide specific benefits, in ways prior generations could never have imagined? We now know the answer to that question is a definitive – YES. There is now probiotic engineering – genetic engineering, to be precise. It’s the ability of scientists to create new microbes – Using genetic engineering, they are now creating enhanced probiotics that are proven to perform specific tasks. Tasks like: • breaking down particular toxins you encounter when eating things like dairy, alcohol, or bread • providing new defensive capabilities to your gut, like the ability to block the absorption of lead or mercury. • producing essential and healthy nutrients in forms your body can digest; and • augmenting your body’s ability to respond to things like radiation or disease. These benefits are far more tangible than generic promises of gut wellness. They are easily verifiable. they can tell whether or not an engineered probiotic works, because they know what it’s supposed to do. If they want to test whether it breaks down a toxin, the answer to that question is a simple laboratory experiment away. genetically engineered bacteria are being designed to target everything from IBD to cancer. these days researchers are not tied down by how probiotics worked (or didn’t work) in the past. the potential of probiotics is mind blowing: when combined with the latest scientific research and creativity. This new vision for probiotics. is pretty awesome. A company has for example developed a probiotic using genetic engineering to break down alcohol in your system! Your liver is great at digesting acetaldehyde — the main culprit in those rough mornings after drinking. But unfortunately, most acetaldehyde accumulates in the unprepared gut, they have used biotechnology to build a solution: a bioengineered probiotic that produces the same type of enzyme as your liver. Simply put, it replicates your liver’s natural process where it matters most: your gut

some people will find these scientific genetic modifications scary! or perhaps playing God with mother nature, are these scientists creating a doctor Frankenstein style monster? Or is it more like a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde scenario of medicine? It’s already scientifically proven your gut bacteria affects they way your mind works, it’s probably possible to bioengineer bacteria that has the power to cure depression, we all should rightly question this of course. After reading the book called simply Gut by Giulia Enders I learned so much and have since adopted a lot of new lifestyle choices, these lifestyle choices are to correct my own ecosystems imbalances, would you eat GM crops? What about GM bacteria for illnesses (or even a hangover cure), the vast majority of us would definitely do this, most of us are already eating GM crops, it can be viewed as simply a way of speeding up cultivation or natural selection, anyone that’s been vaccinated against covid are ok with genetic engineering, personally I am perfectly ok with that its their informed choice, however; I am also perfectly ok with anyone that doesn’t want to eat or be injected with anything genetically modified, that is also their informed choice, my preference is to allow biodiversity and nature to lead the way, especially in the case of covid I’ve had lots of friends catch it and survive I’ve caught it and survived, I am a believer in the old saying what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, I’ve had a lot worse illnesses, I will take the vaccine if I am still around in my seventies dependant on if I still feel strong or weak, science will have changed things by then probably? There will likely be a different approach to the coronavirus in fifteen years’ time (hopefully sooner) the research being carried out is like most other research they are looking for ways to make money regardless of the greater good, do we create new bacteria or try to readdress the imbalances that have occurred in our communities over the course of the last hundred years or so? it’s my belief; our government should be encouraging people to do more for peoples own biodiversity, also our children’s our gardens towns and countryside, we need to grow more organic food in our gardens, do a bit of sustainable foraging, eat more (or only) organic produce, stop taking so many anti biotics! We need to stop overcooking everything; Eat raw foods sometimes, introduce some fermented food to your diet- kimchi, kombucha, kefir, sauerkraut, these are dairy free choices of fermented foods, these days you can get dairy free yoghurts, I am not encouraging anyone to eat ANY dairy products for the health of the planet, I’m not out to sell anything, the exact opposite is true; I hope anyone reading this goes out foraging and ferments their own for absolutely free, the only cost? your own time! it will be time well spent living in sterile conditions will kill you! You need that ecosystem, trying to make the planet sterile with pesticides and weed killers is killing the planet, to summarise the bacteria need us we need them, the more biodiversity we lose the weaker we become, the planets eco system is the same its strong when it`s got lots of biodiversity, all things are relative let’s stop the death and destruction of nature for the love of money, lets grow trees not bank accounts