A healthy body and immune system is truly dependent upon the bodies friends, those healthy bacteria which live in our digestive system and help us to break down food and have a healthy immune system.  A recent Cochrane Review reported that, “probiotics were better than placebo in reducing the number of participants experiencing episodes of acute upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) and reducing antibiotic use. This indicates that probiotics may be more beneficial than placebo for preventing acute URTIs. However, the results have some limitations and there were no data for older people” (Cochrane 2011).  This information is crucial to battling infections and improving our immune systems.

So what are probiotics? Well probiotics are actually healthy bacteria that are naturally found in our digestive tracts.  We kill these healthy bacteria when we are sick and we take antibiotics which destroy the bacteria that make us sick but will also destroy our healthy bacteria.

We can replenish or boost our healthy bacteria through foods or through supplementation.  The food route includes eating healthy fermented foods like Kimche, sourkruat and yogurt. Also we can increase our healthy bacteria through drinking fermented beverages including Kvass and Kombucha. Here is a link to a great study showing how a healthy immune system is achieved with probiotics, http://www.usprobiotics.org/ClinicalStudy_May_2006.asp.

When we need a strong dose of probiotics though it is best to rely on high quality supplementation to reach our optimum levels of health and immunity.  For traveling to help prevent or combat travelers’ diarrhea I like the Jarrow brand which is shelf stable and is easy to throw into your bag. At home Jarrow works well and is easy to leave near your bed stand to take at night. Also you can use a refrigerated type of which there are so many, just make sure to get the one that has the highest content of healthy bacteria. You can get all the info about Jarrow here.

After being prescribed antibiotics I recommend Primal Defense brand as it has been proven to increase the healthy count of bacteria more so than others and is very effective after antibiotic use. You can get all the info about Primal Defense here.