Probiotics: Your key to good health and great immune system!
Global Experts share latest insights and co-relate robust health with Probiotics
December 3 and 4, 2016, Chennai …
These are challenging times. Life is on a fast track with unbalanced diet, stress, lack of physical activity, irregular working hours and lack of proper nutrition. Each one of these factors has taken its toll and it is an undisputed fact that lifestyle disorders like obesity and diabetes and Non Communicable Diseases like cancer are on the rise. There is therefore an urgent need to find solutions that can counter the growing threat.The concept of “Functional foods” that areglobally accepted and focus on “Prevention being better than Cure” is a welcome addition for the improvement of health and prevention of disease.
For a long time it has been believed that bacteria cause disease, so the idea of consuming a few billion bacteria a day for your health might seem — literally and figuratively — hard to swallow. But a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that you can prevent and even treat several diseases with foods and supplements containing selected live bacteria. Consuming a lot of these beneficial microorganisms, called Probiotics (from pro and biotic, meaning “for life”), which reach the intestine alive to deliver their health benefit is an ideal way of ensuring a strong digestive system and boost functional immune system. Scientific and clinical evidence have progressed rapidly with more than 8000 International publications available on the term “Probiotics” which act by favourably modulating the gut microbiota and result in improvement of health and prevention of disease.
You would be surprised to know that we harbour more than 100 trillion organisms which are almost 10 times the number of human cells; the largest numberof these organisms are found in the intestine and are known as intestinal microbiota. The intestinal microbiota aids digestion, helps in better absorption of nutrients, produces vitamins especially Vitamin B and K. Gut microbes have unique ways to enhance immunity. With more than 70% of the immune cells being found in the intestine, the intestinal microbes can interact with the immune cells to influence the development and maturation of the immune system. The intestine is therefore referred to as the Largest Immune Organ.
Global experts shared the latest findings on the influence of the intestinal microbiota with the onset of disease and the benefit ofprobiotics in alleviating them. They also established a strong link between the benefits of probiotics in building a strong immune system. The rationale was also to present the evolving science of probiotics among healthcare professionals like doctors, scientists, nutritionists and students in India and enable them understand the intrinsic goodness of Probiotics.
While globally, decades of research have identified some promising gastrointestinal and immune targets for probiotics that include maintenance of a healthy intestinal function, improved tolerance to antibiotics and an overall reduced risk for different chronic diseases, new findings have reinforced the all-round goodness of probiotics.
