Prof Regan's Supermarket Secrets (9 of 27)

Prof Regan's Supermarket Secrets

The probiotic drinks refer to the microscopic life that is growing inside all of us, bacteria.
The average human carries around one to one a half kilograms of microbes inside.
I think it's estimated that something like 90 or 95% of all the cells in the human body are bacteria inside the large intestine.
So there's a lot.
Since we allow this enormous amount of bacteria to live inside our guts, they must do us some good.
So the drinks are teeming with similar bacteria.
What is meant to happen is that people ingest these and it boosts the level of good, friendly bacteria which are there in the first place.

'Meet the old Yakults, they haven't changed much in 71 years.' And all that time probiotics have been associated with good health.
I take them, all my family do, most people I speak to do, in fact.
Prof Glen Gibson's research at Reading University has convinced him that they do work.
It 's hard to ignore the evidence and the evidence is that there are well over 100 peer-reviewed, scientific publications most of which have arisen in the last four years which show positive effects of taking probiotics.
Many groups of people who've had gut problems, infants with diarrhoea or people with gastroenteritis have benefited from probiotics but probiotics are also marketed to healthy people.
# Ow! I feel good...#
Did you know that an essential part of your natural defences are the good bacteria in your gut?
It 's probiotic so it brings a smile to your whole body.
And a healthy gut makes for stronger natural defences.
Do healthy people like Prof Regan need probiotics?
At Imperial College in London they are starting to answer this question for the first time.