Prebiotic vs Probiotic: What You Need To Know - Ask a Nutritionist

Transcript:

Alyssa: Hello and welcome back to “Ask a Nutritionist”, our weekly Dishing Up Nutrition episode where we tackle a topic asked by our listeners. I am Alyssa, Registered Dietitian, here with Nutritional Weight & Wellness. Today we'll discuss a topic we frequently get questions about this.

This listener asks, can you explain the difference between prebiotics and probiotics? How do they help me and how do I know if I may benefit from supplementing with one or both ? Let's dive it.

What is the gut microbiome & why it is important to keep it healthy?

First, let's talk a bit about the gut microbiome, then prebiotics and probiotics. Your gut microbiome is the community of microbes living in your GI tract. It's like a flourishing garden. You are the host to trillions of microorganisms living inside you.

Both you and the microorganisms benefit from the relationship. You provide them with housing and food, and in return, these good bacteria interact with many of your body's systems and assist with a variety of bodily functions like digestion and your immune system. When your garden is flourishing, you are thriving.

However, if your garden’s soil becomes depleted, polluted or full of weeds and pests that start invading and taking over all the space of those helpful plants, those good microorganisms, you have an unhealthy garden. Gut dysbiosis is when the garden of microbes in the gut is out of balance. And harmful microorganisms outnumber the helpful ones. It can contribute to a variety of chronic digestive challenges like frequent constipation, diarrhea, bloating, and heart rate.

What are the roles of prebiotics & probiotics in the gut?

Prebiotics and probiotics can come into play to help support and if needed, improve the state of our gut microbiome. Prebiotics are a sort of undigestible carbohydrate fiber that feeds the good bacteria in your gut. When you eat foods with prebiotics, the fiber travels through your digestive track and reaches the bacteria in the large intestine.

The good bacteria then eat the prebiotic fibers. They ferment and break them down. And as the food source for the good bacteria, those prebiotics stimulate and help those bacteria flourish in the garden. These prebiotics act as fertilizer. While prebiotics are a type of fiber, not all fiber is prebiotic.

So dietary fibers considered to have a prebiotic effect feeding these gut bacteria include resistant starches, inulin, fructooligosaccharides, and glucooligosaccharides. Some foods that contain resistant starches include cooked and cooled potatoes, or cooked in cooled oats and greener less ripe bananas. Some foods with inulin, fructooligosaccharides and glucooligosaccharides include garlic, onions, chicory root, asparagus, chickpeas, lentils, green peas, apples, and pistachios.

When adding more prebiotic fiber foods into your diet, I recommend going slow, gradually increase the amounts of prebiotic fiber foods in your diet to help give your gut and the gut bacteria time to adapt to that increased quantity of prebiotic fibers arriving into the large intestine. Going slow can help reduce the possibility of you experiencing uncomfortable and excessive gas.

Who might benefit from more prebiotics?

So how would you know if you would benefit from more prebiotics in your diet? Some signs bacteria living in your gut microbiome may be under fed include irregular bowel movements like constipation or diarrhea or sluggish digestion, feeling bloated after meals, having low energy, brain fog, experiencing cravings for sugar or ultra processed foods, trouble managing your blood sugars or appetite control.

If you look back at your eating pattern and you are not frequently eating an adequate and diverse number of plants, your beneficial gut bacteria might be low on food. Look back at your typical intake. Count how many different plants do you eat on a regular basis? This includes all your different fruits, vegetables, beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, and whole grains.

What number do you come up with? If you are at 10 to 15 different plants a week, can you slowly build up to frequently eating 20 or 30 different plants each week? This will help better fuel the helpful bacteria living in your gut.

In some cases, prebiotic fiber supplementation can be beneficial. Examples of prebiotic fiber supplements we have available at our offices and on nutrikey.net include Sun Fiber and a prebiotic fiber blend by Ortho Molecular called Fiber MGP.

Both soluble fiber options can help feed the gut bacteria and support bowel regularity. For clients living with irritable bowel syndrome, who find they are sensitive to many of the prebiotic fiber foods that are higher in FODMAPs, a low FODMAP prebiotic fiber supplement such as Sun Fiber may be beneficial to their gut support and symptom management plan.

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More on probiotics & why are they important

Probiotics: these are defined as live microorganisms that when taken in adequate amounts, provide a health benefit to you, the host. Probiotics mainly consist of good, friendly bacteria and yeast. Each probiotic is unique. They are the seeds you plant in your gut microbiome, garden. When you take in probiotics from foods and/or supplements, we are adding those live beneficial microorganisms to the community microbes already within the gut and elsewhere in the body, with the intent of strengthening those communities and helpful microorganisms.

Adding beneficial probiotics may aid those helpful microorganisms already living in the gut to prevent the growth and proliferation of more harmful types of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites. Probiotics can be found also in fermented foods with live and active cultures like yogurt, sauerkraut, kefir, and in pill or powder supplements.

Probiotic foods are fermented. Not all fermented foods contain probiotics. Also, probiotics do not make their way down into your gut and set up camp. They seem to have more of a transient effect that you consume them. They do a job that benefits you as the host, and they eventually leave your gut.

How to know if it would be beneficial to supplement with a probiotic (& which strains to choose)

So how might we know if it would be beneficial to supplement with a probiotic and which strains to choose for supplementation? The best probiotic for a person depends on their history and needs. Remember different strains target and do different things.

Overall, probiotics may be a helpful supplement to support improved digestion and nutrient absorption for immune system support, to reduce gas, bloating, and diarrhea, to support mood and brain health through the gut brain connection, and for the reduction of sugar cravings. Depending on a person's history, symptoms and concerns, as a dietitian, I may or may not recommend adding a daily probiotic supplement.

Some situations where a supplement of probiotics can be a beneficial tool includes for the prevention of antibiotic associated diarrhea, irritable bowel symptom support, and constipation management. A few standout groups of probiotics we often use and recommend include bifidobacterium. Most healthy intestinal tracts include various strains of bifidobacteria. It's a common group of probiotics we usually start supplementing with for overall healthy gut. These probiotics can help support bowel regularity, digestion, immune health, and support the reduction of sugar cravings.

Lactobacillus, specifically Lactobacillus acidophilus is a probiotic beneficial for both digestive and immune support. Regarding digestion, this strain especially targets the upper GI tracts and supports issues like reflux. Lactobacillus strains also target the urinary and vaginal tracts so they can be helpful in women's health, especially if a person is experiencing reoccurring urinary and/or vaginal infections.

Saccharomyces boulardii is a non-pathogenic yeast that helps clear out yeast overgrowth for issues like candida. It is known as a useful probiotic for preventing and or recovering from antibiotic associated diarrhea. Because it is a yeast probiotic and not a bacteria is not killed by those antibiotics.

Akkermansia is a newer probiotic. This probiotic is found in small amounts in a healthy gut, and it naturally raises GLP-1 hormone or your anti-hunger hormone. This strain may be beneficial to add if you struggle with overeating or not feeling satiated after a balanced meal.

One thing to note is that you can take multiple different strains of probiotics at one time since different probiotic strains provide different benefits to you as the host. Several probiotic supplements and foods with probiotics are multi-strain, providing more than one type of probiotic. If you want more guidance on where to start with probiotic supplements, we have a helpful article available on our website, weightandwellness.com, titled “What Probiotic is Right for You?”

It goes into more detail about what each probiotic targets and which situations would benefit the most from each one. When adding any probiotic or prebiotic foods and/or supplements, one piece of advice to remember and walk away with is to start slowly. It can be common to experience some bloating and gas as the gut adjusts to new added prebiotic fibers and/or probiotic bacteria.

When you work individually with a dietitian, we may recommend you start with a smaller dose and work up to the recommended beneficial dose. Some signs you may notice that signify that a probiotic supplement is doing its job and providing benefit to you include: your bowel movements are more regular.

You may have more comfortable digestion, less bloating, gas pain, you may experience and feel improved energy and mood, less sluggishness. You may have fewer sugar cravings or you might not get sick as often as you did in the past. Keep in mind, it can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks to notice changes depending on multiple factors, including the state of your gut health and overall diet.

Wrapping it up

So to wrap things up, probiotics are living microorganisms. They are the good bacteria and yeasts, the seeds you plant and add into your gut microbiome garden. Prebiotics are non-digestible carbohydrates. They're the fertilizer that feed and stimulates the good bacteria in your gut to grow and flourish in your microbiome garden.

Both work together to boost your health and digestion. They play a role in supporting you to feel your best. For most people, a diverse fiber rich diet full of different plants, including fruits, vegetables, beans, lentils, grains, nuts and seeds, plus maybe occasional fermented foods with live and active cultures is a good foundation to supporting digestion and the gut microbiome.

In some situations, we may add in a supplemental prebiotic fiber and/or probiotic supplement as a beneficial support tool. Thank you for listening to this episode of Dishing Up Nutrition's “Ask a Nutritionist” if you find this episode helpful, please leave a review and share it with a friend.

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