A good probiotic has many health benefits, but why should you take probiotics after antibiotics ? Many people wonder this before ordering protiobica . When you follow a course of antibiotics, you can hardly avoid it; you worry about the health of your gut. Antibiotics can affect your intestinal flora. In addition, the side effects of antibiotics can include bloating, headaches, and even yeast infections.
How do you prevent or reduce these symptoms while your gut flora is repairing itself? Is this possible, for example, by using probiotics after antibiotics? We will answer that in this article! In the next paragraph, let's first describe the impact an antibiotic has on the intestinal flora.
How do antibiotics affect the gut flora?
Many doctors used to assume that a sterile body was related to a healthy body. They assumed that our immune system was constantly fighting the microbes we came into contact with. Once antibiotics were invented, millions of lives were saved by protecting people from bacterial infections.
Now the medical community understands and recognizes that there is a whole world of beneficial organisms living in your gut. As long as we keep those in balance, we stay healthy.
Colonies of beneficial bacteria in your digestive tract help you digest and absorb your food, fight germs that make you sick, and even make a lot of your serotonin. Science continues to discover ways in which gut bacteria are directly related to your health. But what is the link between probiotics after antibiotics?
Well, antibiotics are one of the biggest threats to our gut health. Antibiotics kill the bacteria responsible for infection, but they also kill the friendly gut bacteria you want to nurture. At best, you might have diarrhea and gas for a few days. In the worst case, it can get so bad that the balance of your microbiome (that is, all the microorganisms in your body together) shifts.
This can result in health problems such as:
- Malabsorption (reduced absorption of nutrients)
- Heartburn
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
- Acne
- Autoimmune Diseases
- candida
- Restless feeling
- Depression
- Not a good focus
Fortunately, you don't have to wait for your body to recover and adapt on its own – you can lend your body a hand! Read on to find out how you can support your gut flora so you can curb any damage from antibiotics as quickly as possible. In the next paragraph we zoom in on the effect of probiotics after antibiotics.
Probiotics after antibiotics to restore intestinal flora
Each dose of antibiotics destroys a large portion of the bacteria in your body — including the good bacteria. Then the good and bad microbes are slowly built up again and if all goes well, they come back into balance. But this process takes time and there can be an imbalance between the colonies. Taking probiotics after antibiotics can help bring gut bacteria back into balance more quickly.
Supplements with probiotics
To prevent one colony from taking over your intestinal flora during a course of antibiotics , supplement your diet with a probiotic. The friendly probiotic bacteria may not colonize the gut flora during a course of antibiotics, but they can help you reduce or prevent side effects by protecting the gut.
When you time a dose of probiotics after antibiotics, the good bacteria can do their job in your gut by keeping the bad bacteria in check. A few will even survive and be able to balance and keep them until the next dose of antibiotics wipes them out. Now that you know what the probiotic effect is, we describe below how the intake of probiotics can best be timed and which type of probiotic is most suitable.
Taking a Probiotic: Timing and Type Are Crucial
It is also good to know the best timing of probiotics after antibiotics. Make sure to take your probiotic at least two hours before or after an antibiotic dose. If you are sensitive to probiotics, avoid strains that can produce histamines. You can think of bacterial strains such as Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus reuteri and Lactobacillus bulgaricus.
But which probiotics are suitable? Preferably choose Lactobacillus plantarum, Bifidobacterium lactis, Bifidobacterium infantis and Bifidobacterium longum. These strains of bacteria lower histamine levels (and thus can be effective against histamine intolerance ), reduce inflammation and improve digestion.
Opt for probiotics with S. boulardii
Saccharomyces boulardii is not a bacterium but a yeast species. Antibiotics can therefore not affect S. boulardii. In several studies , researchers found that S. boulardii prevented antibiotic-associated diarrhea (AGD) when they administered this yeast at the same time as antibiotics.
Foods during a course of antibiotics
Don't just stick with probiotics after antibiotics: Eating foods rich in natural prebiotics can help your stomach and gut stay strong. Natural prebiotics are the fiber-rich foods that your body cannot digest. As they pass through your digestive tract, they feed the probiotics that live there. In other words, they help the good bacteria (the probiotics) in your gut.
So when taking antibiotics, it's a good idea to eat a diet rich in both probiotics and prebiotics.
Try to eat prebiotic foods, such as:
- Bitter leafy vegetables, such as seaweed and spinach
- Onions, garlic and leek
- asparagus
- bananas
- apples
- Barley
- Oats
- Cacao
- Flax seed
- Roots, such as chicory and jicama
- Artichoke
All of these foods can help increase the number of beneficial bacteria – such as Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus – in the gut. In other words, these foods with prebiotics are at least as important as probiotics after antibiotics – they contribute to a strengthened intestinal flora .
You can also add more foods to your diet that are naturally high in probiotics. Think about:
- Fermented foods, such as raw, unpasteurized sauerkraut, tempeh, and kimchi
- miso
- Yogurt (with live and active cultures), kefir and buttermilk (traditional, not cultured)
- Kombucha
- pickles
If you are trying to supplement your diet with prebiotic and probiotic foods and supplements, talk to your doctor or a dietitian first. Some foods and dietary supplements can interfere with the action of antibiotics.
Probiotics after antibiotics summarized
Antibiotics are important in fighting bacterial infections, but they can cause side effects, including long-term negative changes in the makeup of your gut microbiome. This is because antibiotics do not distinguish between good and bad gut bacteria.
Supplementation of probiotics after antibiotics, as well as eating pre- and probiotic foods, can help reduce antibiotic-related side effects (such as diarrhea). This approach can also help restore the balance between good and bad bacteria in your gut.
Supplementing your diet with fiber-rich and fermented foods (which contain live bacterial cultures) can also lead to health benefits. These types of foods can enrich your microbiome with good bacteria that results in a healthier gut flora .
Finally, it is good to know which foods and drinks to avoid during a course of antibiotics. Avoid alcohol, grapefruit and foods rich in calcium. The interaction between antibiotics and these foods can cause damage to the body.