Experts are divided over the benefits of probiotics.

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At that place'southward new evidence about the benefits and drawbacks of taking probiotics. Getty Images

If you're feeling ill from a bacterial infection, information technology's probable your md will prescribe antibiotics.

While antibiotics kill off bad bacteria, they tin can besides disrupt your gut's complex microbiome, the microscopic community of leaner that work together to make everything run smoothly.

To counteract this, your dr. might suggest you lot take probiotics supplements either during or following a regimen of antibiotics. Probiotic treatments incorporate helpful live leaner — think the probiotics that are plant in yogurt — to restore order to your gut.

But is this the most constructive way to get back to health? New enquiry reveals that this might not exist the case.

A recent written report published in the journal Cell, suggests that probiotics might not always be the nigh helpful course of mensurate to restore your gut to health.

The researchers from Weizmann Institute of Science in State of israel and other institutions institute that taking probiotics might actually filibuster your gut microbiome's return to normalcy, longer in fact than merely allowing everything to render to normal post-obit only antibiotic treatments.

The research team divided study participants in ii groups — one was given an 11-strain probiotic handling for a iv-week period, and the other just given a placebo. While the probiotics given to the first group did effectively colonize the gut with new, helpful leaner, this surprisingly delayed the microbiome to render to normal over the full six-month written report flow. Meanwhile, the gut microbiota of those in the second group actually returned to health in three weeks after going off the antibiotics.

This study was performed in both humans and mice.

It suggests there's a lot more than nosotros need to learn about how our gut microbiome works.

"The traditional view has been that the negative effects of antibiotics on the gut microbiome are beingness attenuated by taking probiotics during and after the antibiotic course. There really hasn't been any stiff scientific evidence that this would be beneficial," said Dr. Emeran A. Mayer, managing director of the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience and co-managing director of CURE: Digestive Diseases Inquiry Core Center at the David Geffen School of Medicine at Academy of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Mayer, who is the writer of the volume "The Heed Gut Connection," told Healthline that the traditional rationale for this kind of probiotic treatment frame of mind "has been kind of weak." He said that antibiotics can have a negative touch on on many different taxa and it is "hard to see" how taking probiotics like Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli would help bring the microbiome back to its original state.

That being said, he emphasized that this is "only one study using a item cocktail of probiotics, later a particular form of antibiotics."

"In other words, a different probiotic may be helpful in a patient taking a unlike antibody," he added. "The findings are surprising and certainly take raised a lot of criticisms from probiotic companies. Given the caveats in a higher place, the implications of the written report are that taking probiotics afterward a grade of antibiotics will filibuster the return of the gut microbial architecture to its pre-antibody country. If this study is confirmed past other researchers it ways that the traditional practice of taking a probiotic later on antibiotic is wrong, and should no longer exist recommended by physicians and advertisers."

Mayer added that this doesn't rule out that "other life microbes occurring in fermented nutrient products" like sauerkraut and kimchi, for case, "may be beneficial for patients following a course of antibiotics."

Traditionally, antibiotics are "ane of the most prescribed medications" out in that location, according to Megan Meyer, PhD, managing director of scientific discipline communications at the International Nutrient Information Council (IFIC) Foundation.

"Considering of this, antibody treatment may disrupt the composition and multifariousness of bacterial institute in the gut, which can result in a variety of symptoms, including diarrhea. Probiotics may assist amend the residue of bacteria found in the gut, counteracting potential alterations brought on by antibody treatment," she wrote in an email to Healthline.

Meyer added that this does have uses — taking a probiotic like Bifidobacteria has been shown to reduce antibiotic-associated diarrhea. A 2008 review in the periodical Diet cites that probiotics "can have a beneficial effect on diarrheal weather condition and related GI symptoms."

While the new study offers a counterpoint to the traditional accent on probiotics, information technology offers an alternate solution to returning to the gut microbiome to normal post-obit antibiotic treatment.

The researchers nerveless stool samples from one of the groups, freezing them prior to going on antibiotics. The stool was then returned to gut following antibiotic handling in a process chosen autologous fecal transplantation. This brought the gut microbiome back to normal after 8 days. The group that didn't receive this therapy took 21 days for their gut microbiota to render to perfect health.

Mayer, of UCLA, said that the only approved, recommended course of autologous fecal transplantation right now is for people who take C. difficile colitis, inflammation of the colon caused by the leaner Clostridium difficile.

"In the great majority of people, digestive symptoms later on antibiotics are mild and transient and exercise not justify undergoing" this transplantation method, he said.

"In my opinion, this would be a huge mistake and should strongly exist discouraged," he added. "In the hereafter, there may exist capsules with a combination of several microbes — mimicking a FMT (fecal microbiota transplant) — which could be taken later on an antibiotic handling and might exist highly constructive."

What are alternatives to both probiotic and fecal transplants to get the gut back to health? Meyer, of the IFIC Foundation, wrote that if yous are planning on taking probiotics, you should make sure to incorporate prebiotics in your regimen.

"Prebiotics are defined as 'a substrate that is selectively utilized by host microorganisms conferring a health benefit,' which means these foods can't be broken downward by the human digestive system," she added. "Simply stated, prebiotics are food for probiotics. Fiber-rich foods like fruits, vegetables, cereals are all prebiotics. Specifically, artichokes, asparagus, bananas, berries, chicory, garlic, green vegetables, legumes, onions, tomatoes, too as grains similar barley, oat, and wheat [are] prebiotics. In add-on, other fibers similar inulin are also prebiotics that are added to foods like granola bars, cereal, and yogurt."

She said the jury is out on what the "platonic amount" is for daily prebiotic or probiotic intake.

"I'd recommend incorporating prebiotics and probiotics predominately from nutrient. Think yogurt topped with fruit and an oat-based cereal or an Asian-inspired veggie stir-fry with kimchi," she wrote.

Mayer said that "fifty-fifty though there is no scientific evidence for support," consuming a diversity of naturally fermented food products could be helpful for your gut.

"Again, without scientific evidence, I would suggest not to increase fiber intake drastically, as it may upshot in gas and bloating type symptoms," he added.

A new study out of Israel was just published in the journal Cell that suggests probiotics might non exist the most helpful way to return your gut microbiome back to normal during or afterward going on antibiotics.

I grouping of study participants who went on a placebo actually recovered within three weeks, significantly shorter than those who went on probiotics. It took the full six-month study menstruum for their guts to go dorsum to normal.

The researchers found a therapy called autologous fecal transplantation, which returned pre-antibody-exposed stool to the guts of participants to exist more helpful in bringing the gut microbiome dorsum to normal. Doctors recommend this process just in specific instances, when people are dealing with a specific type of colitis inflaming the colon, for instance.