Probiotic Healing: Unraveling the Mystery

It’s rare that a person hasn’t heard the word probiotics mentioned but you do you know what they really are and how beneficial they can be to your health? If not, keep reading. Jason Hartman and probiotics industry pioneer, Natasha Trenev, break down the mystery of probiotic healing on episode #57 of The Longevity & Biohacking Show. Sometimes a simple lifestyle change has the potential to yield extraordinary returns in good health. This might be one of those things.

Why Listen to Natasha?
With a 750-year history in cultured beneficial bacteria, Natasha Trenev’s family produced legendary yogurt prized by the royal family of Yugoslavia. Her family arrived in the United States in the 1950s, when her father founded Continental Culture Specialists. Following graduation from UCLA in 1970, a decade of research led to Natasha’s development of the first revolutionary method of producing an effective and scientifically validated single strain probiotic bacteria product. Her efforts led to the establishment of the entire probiotics category in North America, Australia, England, Holland, and Belgium.

As a developmental scientist, Natasha has spent years studying the effects of beneficial bacteria and has written several books on the subject. Natasha is an expert on probiotics and has shared her knowledge through many books, journal articles, and articles in major scientific, peer-reviewed publications. She is currently working on additional books in the series of Probiotic Health Guides to continue her quest to educate the public. She is also working on her most scholarly yet easy-to-read book, which she hopes will become the global “probiotics bible.”

Probiotic Healing in Your Second Brain
Have you heard of the idea that human beings have a second brain? Well, we do and it’s probably not what you think. According to Trenev, the gastrointestinal tract, or GI tract, is where the second brain resides. She goes on to say that it has its own nervous system containing 100 million neural endings. There is such a direct connection between the GI tract and the brain in your skull (first brain) that it is not much of a stretch to say the first brain can’t function properly unless the second brain functions properly.

Probiotics
Explained simply, probiotics means maintaining or introducing beneficial bacteria to the GI tract to positively affect your health. Keeping enough of this good stuff is critical to overall well-being, proper weight maintenance, a healthy immune system, skin without blemishes, and so much more.

Your Tortured GI Tract
There’s no doubt that today’s doctors have made it a regular habit to prescribe (some would say overprescribe) antibiotics. The problem is that antibiotics are good at killing bacteria. REALLY good at killing bacteria. Indiscriminately so. Good bacteria, bad bacteria, doesn’t matter. Any and all may find themselves laid waste by a prescribed antibiotic that does its work in attacking what makes us ill but leaves the GI tract and, by extension, immune system weakened.

The lesson to be learned here is that it might not be in your best interest to accept every antibiotic prescription your primary care physician throws at you. Keep in mind, we’re not doctors here at The Longevity Show, so don’t take this as professional advice, but just keep in mind that using antibiotics often over time can have adverse consequences. That being said, the overuse of these kinds of medicines makes it even more critical to get educated on probiotic healing.

Can I Just Eat Some Yogurt?
If only it were that simple. The problem with that solution is that yogurt off-the-shelf is loaded with sugar and preservatives that actually neutralize any good bacteria that might have survived the manufacturing, transportation and storage process. And if you think the food industry is going to back off the idea of polluting every product imaginable with sugar and preservatives, think again. Our Western diet and food production processes are geared to provide the fast and cheap but not nutritious.

Back in the 1960s yogurt was much healthier, Trenev says, but the public really didn’t like the taste. Food companies had a difficult time selling it as a health food. But now yogurt is marketed as a diet food, which allows for the inclusion of sugar and preservatives while maintaining a relatively low calorie count. Thanks to excellent marketing campaigns, we now believe the product packed inside those spiffy little containers is actually good for us. Not so!

Probiotics by the Numbers
Lest you, gentle reader, get the idea that Natasha Trenev is just spouting off a bunch of nonsense with no scientific backing, she points out that there are dozens of credible, published studies around the world that have analyzed and reported on the positive effects of probiotics. We can start with major academic and research institutions. To name a few: Harvard, Stanford, Yale…

Why Most Probiotics are Junk
You may have noticed dozens of different probiotic healing brands littering your favorite grocery store’s shelves. Freedom of choice, right? Let the cream figuratively and literally rise to the top. But wait, says Natasha. There are only two probiotic manufacturing facilities in ALL of North America! They contract out the yogurt production process for pretty much any company that wants to package and sell the stuff.

Most yogurt/probiotic companies don’t even have a tech person to answer questions and work on product development. All the money goes into marketing and hiring high-profile spokespersons (like Carolina Panthers Super Bowl losing quarterback, Cam Newton) to hawk the stuff on television. Trenev reminds us that the bacteria contained in the product must be kept cool through the entire process in order to be of any benefit to your GI tract. Unless the product is labeled “perishable,” there’s a good bet it remained on a loading dock somewhere long enough for the living bacteria inside to die. These little guys do not tolerate temperature fluctuations well.

And what good does dead good bacteria do you? Well, none. For more information about probiotics from the cutting edge of learning, visit Natasha Trenev’s product website at www.trynatren.com . (Image: Flickr | MIKI Yoshihito)