Probiotics and the Benefits of Bacteria, and Other Microorganisms

Paul Reller, L.Ac.

Bacteria are perhaps the most maligned and misunderstood living organism on the planet. Anti-bacterial has become one of the most popular terms in our language, and overuse of bacteriocide chemicals, antibiotics, and disinfectants have become one of the leading threats to public health, according to the Center for Disease Control. At the same time, probiotics, or introduction of healthy microorganisms into the digestive tract with supplements, has also become increasingly well known and popular, and now organic farming, or the growing of food without the use of chemicals that are synthesized to kill symbiotic insects and microorganisms, as well as synthetic nutrient fertilizers that destroy the natural balance of microorganisms, is also becoming popular once again in the population. Just as the overuse of chemicals has created a crisis in our food production in the United States, with food crops now resistant to common pesticides and herbicides, and unhealthy feedlot raising of cows creating crises of antibiotic resistant pathogenic bacteria affecting the human population, a crisis is being created in our bodies as well because of our resistance to understanding and working with bacteria and other microorganisms in our bodies. For millions of years, humans have worked together with beneficial bacteria to create a healthy body and environment, and in only the last one hundred years we have ruined this healthy relationship as we discovered ways to kill bacteria.

While bacteria do create infectious diseases that are sometimes devastating, and the creation of antibiotics has changed the way we live and allowed for control of devastating diseases, we need to continue to evolve our understanding of bacteria and our ways of utilizing science to create a better, safer and healthier world. As with many aspects of our lives, the commercial issues often grow to dominate and control issues of public health. As we gain increased understanding of our environment, we are unable to use this understanding to change in a logical manner, purely because a lucrative industry has been created that perpetuates old technology and fights change if it decreases profit. Change often occurs only when we are faced with dire consequences, as we see now with the subject of climate changes accelerated by our dependence on fossil fuels, excess meat production, and overpopulation. In the last one hundred years, humanity has created changes in the way we live that are amazing, yet we have also created a way of life that has abandoned our respect for the natural interdependence with the rest of life on the planet. This co-dependence is a matter of survival, though, and the science of the way of nature must be once again emphasized if we are to re-establish our place in this world and insure our health and healthy future, both outside and inside our bodies.

While the discovery and creation of antibiotics and antibacterial chemicals has improved treatment overall, the statements that imply that there was no antibiotic treatment and disinfectant before these pharmaceuticals were created is patently false. There is a long history of effective antibacterial and antibiotic therapy with herbal medicine. The advent of antibiotics made it much easier to use stronger medications and have a standard supply of these medications on hand. Before these drugs, there were proven herbal antibiotic antibacterial medicines, though, and modern research not only proves that they work, but also that many of them are useful to insure that the antibiotic drug works more effectively when used with shorter courses and smaller doses of antibiotic drugs. In addition, many studies around the world now prove that herbal chemicals are effective against drug-resistant strains of antibiotics. The greater use of herbal antibacterials and antivirals, along with the maintenance of a healthy bacterial flora in the body, and an efficient and healthy immune system, is the choice of most patients that educate themselves to this important health aspect.

Without bacteria, neither our bodies or our world would survive. The book entitled Microcosmos, Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution, written by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, explains how bacteria created our living environment, maintain the tight level of oxygen tension in the air we breath (despite rising carbon dioxide levels), are integral to our evolution, and in fact, make up a majority of the cells in our bodies. In fact, there are about ten times the number of bacterial cells in the intestines as animal cells in the entire body. The bacterial colony continues to operate symbiotically and with a type of intelligent decision making that still eludes our understanding. Perhaps this lack of understanding is what perpetuates our fear of bacteria. To frame your understanding of the importance of bacteria, and the intelligent bacterial colony across our entire planet, let me refer you to an article in the New York Times Science section of May 24, 2010, cited with an e-link below in additional information. The article, From Trees and Grass, Bacteria That Cause Snow and Rain, reveals how scientists have only now discovered that a common bacteria, pseudomonas syringae, which grow on our food crops, trees and grasses, are carried in aerosol form into the sky and form the nucleus of raindrops and snowflakes, exerting a living control of the falling of snow and rain by expressing proteins that trigger freezing at higher temperatures than usual, prompting the formation of ice crystals in the atmosphere that then fall to the earth and melt into rain drops. These specific bacteria have been found to compose the nucleus of snow crystals in over 70% of high altitude rain drops and snow flakes in some studies. The healthy balance of bacteria on the plants that we grow for food, the grasses in our yards, and the trees in our backyards and parks, are responsible for the balanced control of rain and snow precipitation in our world. We need to stop using so many harsh chemicals to kill these wonderful bacteria.

We have known for some time of the importance of bacteria concerning the formation of rain and snow, and have utilized the proteins formed in bacteria for cloud seeding and snow making. Commercially, ski resorts have been using these proteins to create snow, and a single bacterium in commercial production may produce enough protein molecules to stimulate a thousand snow flakes. Researchers are now convinced that a variety of bacteria, and even fungi, exist that exert a control over the formation of rain and snow. How does this relate to probiotics, you may be wondering? To fully grasp the subject of healthy flora and fauna, or symbiotic microorganisms in our digestive tract, we, as a community, or culture, need to understand the importance of bacteria, and the intelligent way that bacteria works with us, in our bodies, and on our foods, to maintain the complex balancing act that keeps us healthy, and keeps our environment healthy as well, which is all important to the health of the individual. Just as we depend upon healthy bacteria growing on our food crops, grass, and trees to make sure that we get timely rain and snow to survive, we depend upon healthy symbiotic bacteria to keep our bodies healthy as well. Simply ignoring the subject of bacterial balance, operating on the misconceptions that we maintain in our society, and expecting that eating some yoghurt advertised as containing probiotics will guarantee a healthy digestive system, is a gross oversimplification, and an ineffective way to utilize an understanding of nature and the human organism to achieve or restore healthy function. A comprehensive and holistic approach to probiotics involves restoration of the balance between the bacterial colony and animal cell organism in your body, and involves the intelligent choices of natural foods, avoidance of unnecessary chemicals in the food, household and general environment, and avoidance of unnecessary antibiotic, antibacterial, and disinfectant chemicals as well. This doesn't mean that we vilify these products and technologies, but that we use them intelligently when we need them, and not just because some corporation wants to increase sales.

Utilizing probiotic microorganisms to restore your intestinal health may require not only a superior product, but also attention to the whole environment that these symbiotic bacteria need to colonize and maintain your health.

Restoration of the health and balance of the microbial colony in the gut is not as simple as we have been led to believe. In 2010, researchers discovered that there are three distinct types of ecosystems in the gastrointestinal systems of humans, called enterotypes (re: Peer Bork of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelburg, Germany). These distinct biotic systems have no link to ethnicity, sex, age, weight, or health, and this biotic system has so far baffled researchers. Each enterotype is thought to contain basic microbes that alter the gut environment so that only certain species may follow them in making up the complex varied biotic environment. The distinct enterotypes do have characteristics that alter the individual’s health, though. For instance, Enterotype 1 microbial colony generally produces more enzymes to create more Vitamin B7, or biotin, while Enterotype 2 microbes may produce more enzymes to regulate Vitamin B1, or thiamine. The study of enterotypes is extremely complicated, though, with years of mapping the diversity of microbes in the human population already producing an enormous amount of data. Each person is symbiotic with about 100 trillion microbes, and many of these, even bacteria, cannot be grown in a laboratory setting so far, limiting study of individual characteristics. Genetic mapping has accelerated this study, but adds to the complexity. Dr. Bork and his colleagues were startled to find distinct enterotypes, and so far the study of microbial patterns has produced few reasonable hypotheses to explain why we have distinct enterotypes.

In 2011, the esteemed Cochrane Summaries, a medical database of all published scientific medical studies, published a review of studies examining the benefits or probiotics for preventing acute upper respiratory tract infections, commonly called the flu and common cold. This meta-review found that consumption of probiotics significantly reduced the episodic upper respiratory tract infections in infants, children, and adults. This is presumed to occur because the probiotics support a more healthy immune membrane protection and help eliminate the circulating irritants to upper respiratory membrane health, including allergens. Even though these upper respiratory tract infections are almost always viral, not bacterial, the support of a healthy biota was important in the immune protection, and probiotics are thus more than an aid to healthy bowel movements (CD006895).

So far we are in the infancy of understanding and utilizing the means to restore microbial symbiotic health in the gut. Advertising leads us to believe that we can just eat a particular yoghurt and all is well. This is patently untrue for anyone with a serious imbalance. Complementary Medicine is utilizing a wealth of new information to form a sensible treatment protocol, but the complexity of this task requires that patients understand that a thorough step-by-step protocol may be needed. Research as that cited above will help in the coming years to identify better and better individualized treatment protocols and to understand how gut microbial imbalances are contibuting to serious health problems and disease.

A sensible protocol to better utilize probiotics and restore the healthy balance between bacteria and our animal cells in the digestive tract

For a person with a relatively healthy digestive tract, simply taking some probiotics is probably reasonably effective. For persons with unhealthy intestinal tracts, the challenge of these probiotic bacteria to colonize and restore bacterial balance is great. For this reason, professional probiotic products now incorporate added ingredients to enhance bacterial growth in the colon, such as fructooligosaccharides, lactobacillus growth factor (pantethine), and pantothenic acid. Oligosaccharides are considered prebiotics, or nutrients that stimulate growth or activity of healthy symbiotic intestinal bacteria. Quality products also utilize various strain of bacteria that are thought to be most helpful, such as Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium bifidum, longum and infantis, and Bacillus coagulans, with at least 10 billion colony-forming units per gram. The serving size would generally be about 100 mg, giving one-tenth of ten billion per dose, or 1 billion bacilli. Lactobacilli are gram-positive anaerobic or microaerophilic bacteria that help convert the carbohydrate sugar lactose, and other sugars, to lactic acid. These make up a small portion of the normal symbiotic bacteria in the intestine, but are proven to possess potential anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer activities. Since Lactobacilli acidophilus are commonly used in food production, this is an easy bacilli to supplement with. Bifidobacterium are a type of gram-positive anaerobic bacteria that are the major genera of the gut flora, or the predominant symbiotic bacteria in the colon. These have been studied and proven to potentially lower incidence of allergic reaction and prevent tumor growth. Bifidobacterium are considered essential to ferment carbohydrates. Fructooligosaccharides are plant-derived sugars that naturally enhance the ability of Bifidobacterium to ferment carbs. Bacillus coagulans is a gram-positive anaerobic bacterium that has been proven beneficial in treating IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), improving bloating, and increasing immune responses to viral challenges. As time goes on, there will be more species approved by the FDA and European Union for human consumption. Pantothenic acid, or Vitamin B5, is an essential nutrient in carbohydrate, protein and fat metabolism, improves the lipid profile, and has been found effective in tissue healing. Pantothenic acid is found in small quantities in nearly every type of food, but high amounts are found in whole grains, legumes, eggs, and royal jelly. Supplementation with a sufficient dosage is found useful in stimulating the metabolism.

Besides these standard probiotic bacteria there are now types of probiotic bacteria that are researched to provide additional benefit for patients that have health problems that are potentially related to imbalance of the symbiotic microbial colony in the intestine. Irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, nutritional deficiencies, and even chronic skin rash (atopic dermatitis) have been linked to poor intestinal health and allergic immune hyperactivity related to unhealthy microbial colonies in the gut. One type of probiotic bacilli that has gone through years of clinical trials and proven to be a potent medicine is Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (ATCC 531013), which is commonly just called Lactobacillus GG (GG referring to the scientists that patented this strain, Gorbach and Goldin). This type of bacterium is a transient colonizer in the intestine, but does exert some potent medicinal benefits, and thus is recommended for patients with various health problems. Lactobacillus GG is now commonly used as a preservative for yoghurts, but a therapeutic dose is much higher than what is found in standard yoghurts. Lactobacillus GG thrives in acidic guts, is stable in the presence of bile, and produces lactic acid (the deficiency of which accounts for indigestion when eating dairy products). This makes Lactobacillus GG ideal for patients with chronic acidity, potential problems with bile breakdown, and patients with poor digestion of dairy products. Lactic acid is one of our main food fermenters as well, and persons with bloating an constipation may benefit from this probiotic. Studies have shown that Lactobacillus GG benefits patients with chronic urinary tract and vaginal infections by increasing biosurfactant excretion that inhibits adhesion of pathogens to the urinary tract and vaginal membranes. Studies have shown benefit in treating various types of diarrhea, reduction in the incidence of respiratory tract infections (chronic bronchitis), and treatment of atopic dermatitis. In 2005, a study showed that Lactobacillus GG was successful in treating antibiotic-resistant enterococcus that perpetuated kidney infections. Lactobacillus GG is thus a useful addition to therapy when utilizing probiotics for patients with these problems. Lactobacillus GG is patented and marketed as Culturelle in the United States.

Besides using a quality professional probiotic product, though, persons with a history of intestinal problems may want to first clear and detoxify the intestine, and possibly promote intestinal wall health, before taking the probiotic, to better insure that the probiotic colonizes and positively affects the intestine. If there is an imbalance of flora and fauna, or if there is evidence of an unhealthy bowel lining, such as in IBS, colitis, Crohn's, or celiac disease, or even with diverticulitis, an individualized course of clearing of unhealthy flora and fauna, and improvement in the immune responses and tissue health, could make the probiotic work for you. A number of Chinese herbs and formulas can effectively clear unhealthy bacteria, viruses, and parasitic microorganisms. Using a short course of these herbs before beginning probiotic therapy, as well as intermittently during the probiotic course, could help normalize the flora and fauna to better achieve an ultimate healthy balance. Use of bovine colustrum may also be helpful to establish an improved immune response, as this mother's milk molecule contains bioidentical antibodies to a number of common human pathogens, including E. coli, cryptosporidium, shigella, salmonella and staphylococcus, as well as rotavirus, that is associated with diarrhea. Bovine colustrum was used as the main source of human immunoglobin therapy before the development of antibiotics. Bovine colustrum is safe and effective, and contains a number of nutrient chemicals that are also beneficial to overall health and health of the intestinal lining. Athletes routinely use bovine colustrum to insure optimum performance, and colustrum contains potent antioxidants, as well as chemicals that improve blood quality, such as hemopexin, which binds free heme (as in hemoglobin) in the body.

The normal bacteria in the intestine not only helps to finish the digestion and fermentation of our foods, but also helps us in a number of other ways. These bacteria produce essential nutrients as needed, especially various B vitamins, such as B12 and biotin, and Vitamin K (needed for healthy blood clotting factors). They also produce various hormones, many of which are needed to regulate fat storage and utilization (such as leptin), and chemokines (molecules that guide immune cells to the right target). Bacteria normally make up most of the flora in the colon, and our feces is composed of about 60% bacterial cells in the dry mass. This shows that the bacterial colony must be healthy and reproduce to insure health. It is thought that about 30-40 species of bacteria make up 99% of the normal flora. These normal bacteria work as a colony to prevent the growth of other harmful bacteria, stimulate a healthy immune response, finish food fermentation to produce gases that supply oxygen to the tissues, and supply other essential nutrients that we may need, such as essential fatty acids. Normal gut flora also maintain the right acidic balance in the intestines, and in the rest of the body. Healthy gut bacteria also inhibit overgrowth of yeasts, such as candida albicans, and fungi. When the intestinal flora are depleted, such as with antibiotic use, they cannot compete effectively for intestinal lining epithelial attachment sites, leaving the epithelium open to invasion by unwanted pathogenic microorganisms, and food molecules that are still not broken down, and lead to overreactive immune responses (celiac disease). When the acidity is imbalanced in the intestines, there is a high chance that various microorganisms will flourish that lead to poor health, such as candida. This chronic acidity also stresses the body and its ability to control acidity, putting stress on the complex calcium metabolism, as well as the kidney, as it produces blood plasma CO2 to control acidity in the body.

Besides using professional quality probiotics in a step-by-step regimen in Complementary Medicine, one can also incorporate prebiotic nutrients into the diet. These are obtained by chewing a little raw steel cut oats in the morning, barley (or consuming dried barley sprouts), and eating jicama, chicory root, or Jerusalem artichoke (all with inulin). Fermented soybeans, such as in tempe, are also a good source. Other foods that may contain prebiotics include raw garlic, leek and banana (minimal amount), as well as cooked onion, and whole wheat flour. The highest content of prebiotics in food are found in raw chicory root, Jerusalem artichokes and dandelion greens. While many people are reluctant to consume these raw foods, the consumption of a clove of raw garlic is reknowned for improving and maintaining the health. Unfortunately, the garlic smell on the breath is undesirable for most people, and the eating of a little raw leek is a good substitute. Eating homemade whole wheat and barley flour pancakes in the morning is also a good habit to obtain prebiotics. If you juice, you might want to incorporate just a little raw jicama, chicory root, dandelion green, leek, or onion into the juice.

How antibiotic overuse hurts our own cells

The authors of the book Microcosmos reveal that mitochondria, the organelles (small organs) found in most animal cells, that generate most of our ATP (adenosine triphosphate), or cellular fuel, via oxygen utilization, were derived from bacteria. The authors also state that mitochondrial ribosomes (DNA and RNA), as well as symbiotic bacteria, tend to be sensitive to exactly the same antibiotics as pathogenic bacteria. Streptomycin is an example of a common antibiotic that harms the cellular mitochondria and normal symbiotic bacteria in the body. For this reason, overuse of antibiotics creates problems with the health. Imbalance of gut flora and fauna, as well as of symbiotic bacteria in the mouth, vagina, and other tissues, can be negatively affected, and create chronic problems with one's health and immunity. Since mitochondrial dysfunction is now found to be at the heart of many diseases, especially chronic neurological diseases, and degenerative disorders, antibiotic use should be used only when necessary, and restoration of the gut flora and fauna, and strengthening of the immune system, should always be considered after using a course of antibiotics.

The Important Role of Bacteria in Maintaining our Environmental Health

Besides the role of bacteria and fungi in controlling the formation of rain and snow, bacteria maintain an intelligent tight control of the percentage of oxygen in the air we breath, as well as the health of the upper atmosphere that protects us from the deadly radiation emitted by our sun. Oxygen, which is very necessary to our life, makes up about one-fifth of our atmosphere. Study of the fossil records of our planet's past has revealed that it is the stabilization of atmospheric oxygen at about 21 percent that keeps us alive as we now exist. If the oxygen concentration would rise much higher than this, or if it had risen much higher than this in the last hundreds of millions of years, there would be, or would have been, a worldwide conflagation, according to the authors of Microcosmos. This is due to the high combustible state of an oxygen-rich air. If the oxygen level would fall below this tight level of concentration, living organisms as we know them would have a difficult time thriving. If oxygen falls a few percentage points aerobic (oxygen-breathing) organisms would start to asphyxiate. If oxygen increased by a few percentage points in the atmosphere, living organisms could spontaneously combust. While we think that we humans are responsible for the future of our environment, and that the large increase in carbon dioxide gases from industry, increases in the production of meat (methane gas), destruction of the plant life (e.g. the rain forests, coral reef algae, and peat bogs), and overpopulation, show that humans are responsible for the balance of gases in the atmosphere, the truth is that we still lack a fundamental understanding of the complex way that a holistic and synergistic bacterial intelligence actually maintains the necessary balance of gases, temperature and every other aspect of our life-giving environment that evolved in so complicated a fashion over so many millions of years.

This doesn't mean that we should ignore our responsibility to act responsibly in the framework of nature to maintain a healthy environment and life on the planet, but it does show us that we better adopt a new attitude if we are to succeed. We need to adopt the virtue of humility and understand that in all of this wonderful creation, we play a less significant role in a the natural order than we might fantasize, and that we need to operate within our designated role, understanding and working with the rest of nature. By reconfiguring our role in an industrial age, we can quickly adapt to the changes necessary to reclaim a technological way of life that is in harmony with the rest of life on the planet. The bacterial colony is already adapting to us. We need to work with bacteria to improve our world. Bacteria, acting intelligently will modify changes in global warming, and in fact will help clean up a lot of our messes. In 2010, the gulf oil spill was enormous, and the one technology that succeeds in cleaning up most of this spilled oil on the ocean floor is bacterial growth that eats the oil. This enormous bacterial effort dwarfs any man-made technology. Unfortunately, the aerobic bacteria that grow at an incredible rate also consume most of the oxygen, killing themselves and all life on the ocean floor. What happens then is that the organic debris from these bacteria create food and fuel for a fairly quick restoration of the denuded ocean floor. While humans talk, bacteria act.

In the evolution of life on this planet, oxygen and sun radiation, or light, were perhaps the two most toxic elements on the planet. Oxygen and light together were even more toxic. As the molten core of our planet created mineral elements with high heat combustion fueled by enormous pressures, metal oxides came to the surface in the form of gases. These gases escaped from the planet, but eventually, an atmosphere was created that trapped the gases. About 2000 million year ago, natural decay quickly accelerated the oxygen trappead in this atmosphere, from about one part in a million, to about one part in five. Microbial life on the planet was destroyed, yet evolved defenses with DNA replication and duplication, gene transfer, and mutation, to create bacteria that could not only survive, but use these toxic elements to thrive. Cyanobacteria evolved that developed a metabolic system that required oxygen and sunlight, and utilized the combustibility of oxygen to break down carbon based molecules and yield carbon dioxide, creating energy in the process. Eventually, this energy creating process was incorporated into the animal cell, probably in a manner that today we would call an infection, and small but efficient oxygen burning organisms, called mitochondria, became part of our cells. Decay of carbon matter via fermentation produces a couple of molecules of ATP, the fuel of our muscles, from each carbohydrate molecule, while the action of the mitochondria can produce as many as 36 molecules of ATP, making us the efficient organism that we are today. Thank you, cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria also created photosynthesis, producing the abundant vegetable life that not only feeds us, but also produces the oxygen that we breath. While we tend to look at these scientific facts in isolation, and appreciate them in science, we still tend to ignore the complex holistic balance that is still maintained by these bacterial processes, and overlook our own responsibility to continue to work within this bacterial framework to maintain the balance. The gift of higher intelligence means that we must use this intelligence to understand and exert a conscious effort. Organisms without such a higher intelligence, or type of reasoning, behave according to the natural encoded genetic intelligence that they are born with. Our responsibility is to think.

In much the same way as allopathic medicine ignores the big picture and focuses on a particular aspect of disease and injury to correct it, we have ignored the big picture when it comes to our biotic health.

Additional Information:

1. A New York Times Science article explains how science has just now discovered, in 2010, the integral role of bacteria on our food crops, grasses and trees on the control of rain and snow formation and precipitation: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/25snow.html?ref=science
2. A 2010 study at the University of California at Davis found that rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere has resulted in dramatic decreases nutrient content of basic food plants, resulting in much lower usage of nitrates, and dramatic decreases in levels of protein, amino acids, and other key nutrients needed for health maintenance: http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=9479
3. An August 3, 2010 article in the New York Times Science reveals how 21 percent of breast milk is an indigestible substance that seems to be purely a nutrient to feed probiotic bacteria in the infant, showing how important symbiotic bacteria are to our health: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/science/03milk.html?_r=1&ref=science
4. A systematic review of studies of probiotic use to prevent recurrence of upper respiratory infections (flu and common cold etc.), published by the esteemed Cochrane Library database, shows that a number of clinical trials supply proof that probiotics significantly prevent upper respiratory tract infections and reduce prescription of antibiotics. Probiotics are useful for more than intestinal problems, and aid overall immune health: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006895.

The information on this website is not intended to be used as a specific medical advice or cure. Please consult with the practitioner or an appropriate physician, such as a licensed acupuncturist, naturopath, or medical doctor, to discuss the proper application of the information contained on this website.