article on probiotics/WLS

lynnk
on 5/22/08 10:24 pm - burnsville, MN
hi all-I found this article and thought I would share-it's interesting.  Eat that yogurt!

By Martha Kerr

SAN DIEGO (Reuters Health) - In a study conducted at Stanford University, obese patients who took probiotics after undergoing gastric bypass surgery lost more weight than patients who had the surgery but did not take the supplements.

These findings were presented Tuesday during Digestive Disease Week 2008 by Dr. John M. Morton, during a session on the management of patients with obesity.

"We have better treatments for crack cocaine addiction than we do for obesity," Dr. Morton asserted, "but there has been a real revolution with bariatric (obesity) surgery. It provides strikingly durable weight loss...As a result, blood pressures will normalize...We have seen diabetes cure rates of 82 percent, and this can occur within weeks of surgery."

According to the World Health Organization: "probiotics are live microorganisms which, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit." Most probiotics are bacteria similar to the type normally found the people's guts, the "good" bacteria, which helps maintain a balance in the digestive tract and may confer natural protection against disease. The most common probiotics taken as supplements are Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium.

The trial involved 44 patients who underwent gastric bypass surgery and were randomly assigned to receive either 2.4 billion lactobacilli daily or no probiotic therapy for the next 6 months. Quality of life, hydrogen (H2) breath tests, vitamin B12 levels and weight were measured before surgery and at 3 and 6 months afterward.

At six months, the probiotic group had lower H2 breath tests, lower fasting insulin, lipoprotein A and triglyceride levels, and higher HDL cholesterol levels compared with the placebo group, although the differences were not statistically significant.

There was, however, a significantly greater improvement in quality of life in patients taking probiotics compared with those taking placebo.

"What was surprising was that probiotic patients lost more weight after surgery," Morton told Reuters Health. The study group lost 70 percent of their excess weight after 6 months compared with a loss of 66 percent of excess weight in controls.

He added, "This suggests that the cause of the weight increase may be bacterial...and may help explain the observation that fat people have fat friends...Some of it may be environmental and related to social factors, but it may also be related to high bacteria levels in some way."

"We know that probiotics have to be live cultures and you have to (ingest) a minimum of two billion colonies a day," Morton said. "We don't know exactly which probiotic organisms are best and how much to recommended...The populations vary. They are different in the gut flora in different patient types."

At the very least, probiotics are safe, Morton said. "There doesn't seem to be any downside to taking them," he added.

LynnK

NicoleLynn
on 5/22/08 10:40 pm - Minneapolis, MN
Lynn~Thank you so much for posting this!  I discussed this a little with the director of the nutrition program I am in and she had reccommended taking a Probiotic as well as it will help to digest the food better so we may be able to get more nutrients out of what we eat.  After I am done with the intensive phase of my cleansing diet I am going to look into starting this. ~Nicole

"When you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."

(deactivated member)
on 5/23/08 12:02 am - MN
Interesting stuff.  I have a health-nut guru for a co-worker and got some enzymes and acidopholus from her but haven't gotten serious about taking them - I guess this is great proof that I should definitely start TODAY! Thanks Lynn!
Darla S.
on 5/23/08 12:40 am - Maple Grove, MN

Okay, that sounds really intriguing.  But at the risk of revealing just what a dunce I am, how DOES one ingest these probiotics???  Lynn, you suggested yogurt...  I eat yogurt every morning!  But do I need to be eating that Activia stuff to get these probiotics?  Or are they naturally occuring in all yogurts? I should know this, I could research it online, but - can anyone here enlighten me?


  Imperfect does not = unsuccessful

barbk
on 5/23/08 3:27 am - Eagan, MN
Yoplait also has a fat free probiotics yogurt (but not sugar free) or you can find pills to take if you are lactose or sugar intolerant.  


Fitness is not about age or a size -- it's really about an attitude and life style!!!
Life is not measured by the number of breathes we take, but by the moments that take our breathe away~~

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