Tag Archives: probiotics

Best Probiotics for Men

best probiotics for men

Finding the best probiotics for men isn’t hard once you know what to look for.

The benefits of using a daily probiotic are pretty well known these days, but did you know that certain strains can be particularly beneficial for men? Let’s go over some of the best probiotics for men.

Probiotic Benefits

Using a high quality, daily probiotic can have a major impact on your overall health. Probiotics are a combination of live “good” bacteria and yeasts that live naturally in our bodies. You may think of bacteria as something that makes us sick, and you’re right – when “bad” bacteria enters our bodies it tries to take over, making us ill. We need the good bacteria to overpower the bad, and that is where probiotic supplements come in. Here are some of the main benefits of taking a probiotic:

  • Gut Health – Probiotics help keep your digestive system working properly so you dispose of waste regularly and maintain and build essential nutrients.
  • Immune System Strength – Probiotics help balance the bacteria in our bodies so your immune system is strong enough to fight off viruses and keep inflammation under control.

Some of the conditions that may be helped by using a daily probiotic include:

  • Constipation
  • Diarrhea
  • Upper Respiratory Infections
  • Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
  • Ulcerative Colitis
  • Lactose Intolerance
  • Urinary Tract Infections
  • Yeast Infections
  • Eczema

Best Probiotics for Men

 Probiotics can be beneficial to everyone, even children. When choosing a probiotic, you’ll want to look for a product that contains live and active bacterial cultures. It can also be especially helpful to pair a daily probiotic with digestive enzymes such as RAW Probiotics Men by Garden of Life. There are two main strains of “good” bacteria that occur naturally in our bodies and you’ll often find them included in the best probiotics for men.

  1. LactobacillusThis is found naturally in the small intestine and is responsible for keeping our gut healthy.
  2. Bifidobacterium – This is found naturally in the large intestine or colon and helps support a healthy immune system.

Probiotic Options

These days, getting a daily dose of high quality probiotics is pretty easy. They come in a variety of different options, and you can choose which works best with your lifestyle. Here’s a look at some of the choices:

Finding the best probiotics for men isn’t hard once you know what to look for. There are many options out there, but look for a product that contains at least a billion colony forming bacteria strains, including Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. Try it out, and see what an impact probiotics can have on your overall health.

Post-Holiday Gut Soothing Drinks

gut-soothing-drinks

Are you dealing with the after-effects of holiday food and drinks? While the wining and dining of the season has died down, you may now find yourself facing some of the gastrointestinal consequences of all the rich food, drinks, and desserts that often accompany the holiday season.

If you find yourself experiencing bloating, gas, heartburn, acid reflux, and indigestion after the holidays, then you aren’t alone.

Our diets during the entire holiday season can wreak havoc on our digestive health. On Thanksgiving Day alone, the average American consumes about 4,500 calories total, with around 2,061 calories of that coming from fat.

So whether you are dealing with post-holiday stomach discomfort, or just looking for drinks that will help support a healthy gut and digestion throughout the year, then you can’t go wrong with these post-holiday gut-soothing drinks.

Post-Holiday Gut-Soothing Drinks

Ginger Tea

Ginger is one of nature’s best tools to help us fight nausea and indigestion. Just ask any mom who has experienced morning sickness. But the benefits of ginger are not just for pregnancy. Drinking warm ginger tea right before or during a meal may improve your digestive health and even prevent symptoms from heartburn, stomachache, and indigestion.

Kombucha

Kombucha is a drink made by fermenting yeasts and bacteria along with sweetened tea. The result is a sweet, refreshing, lightly carbonated drink that can come in a wide variety of flavors, depending on the tea used. But even more than that, kombucha is rich in antioxidants and

Kiefer

Kiefer is another drink on the list of fermented drinks rich in probiotics. Kiefer tastes similar to yogurt and is relatively easy to either make it home or find at your local grocery store. Kiefer is chock-full of a symbiotic collection of bacteria and yeast that will help replenish the bacteria in your gut.

Celery Juice

Celery juice has a number of health benefits. Not only is it rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin K, but it is also an antioxidant and can support reducing gut inflammation. According to nutritionist Lisa Richards, “It contains a flavonoid named luteolin, which has been proven to inhibit gut inflammation.”

Along with those gut soothing drinks, you can support your gastrointestinal health after the holidays with these probiotic supplements from Klaire Labs, Douglas Laboratories, and Microbiome Labs.

Ther-Biotic Complete – Klaire Labs

Ther-Biotic Complete from Klaire Labs is a high-potency, hypoallergenic blend of 12 certified probiotic species that offers the most complete spectrum of microorganisms in the Klaire line. Ther-Biotic Complete is designed for individuals who require significantly higher amounts of several different types of probiotic species to help support intestinal health, which is why it is formulated with 25 billion CFUs per capsule. It supports innate and acquired immune defense mechanisms and overall colon health, helps synthesize vitamin K and B vitamins, boosts immunological gut barrier function, and encourages a healthy inflammatory response.

Multi-Probiotic 15 Billion – Douglas Laboratories

Support your gut around the year with Multi-Probiotic 15 Billion from Douglas Laboratories. Multi-Probiotic 15 Billion’s Multi-Strain proprietary probiotic blend provides 15 billion beneficial organisms to support intestinal flora with a full amount of live beneficial prebiotics and probiotics. Also containing prebiotic fructooligosaccharides (FOS) to maintain intestinal microorganisms, this probiotic supplement helps establish and maintain a healthy intestinal population of helpful organisms and creates an acidic environment unfavorable to organisms in the gut.

Mega SporeBiotic – Microbiome Labs

Mega SporeBiotic from Microbiome Labs contains a patented probiotic strain that produces antioxidants in the gut. It may support digestion, reduction of inflammation, regularity, and promote a healthy intestinal tract.

What are your favorite post-holiday gut soothing drinks?

When Is the Best Time to Take Probiotics

when-to-take-daily-probiotic

If you’ve ever heard anyone talking about “good bacteria,” there’s a chance that they were talking about probiotics.

Probiotics are live microorganisms found in foods and drinks like yogurt, miso, kefir, kombucha, kimchi, and more. They’re also widely available in supplement form.

People take probiotics through supplements or their diet because probiotics have a long list of potential health benefits for your body. These include supporting gut health and a healthy microbiome, helping your body maintain a normal community of microorganisms, and regulating the absorption of nutrients that may support the body’s essential systems, including a normal immune response.

But it’s not enough to increase your yogurt intake or to start a probiotic supplement. As it turns out, when you take your probiotic can significantly influence its effectiveness. But when is the best time to take probiotics? Keep reading to find out!

When is the Best Time to Take Probiotics?

There are different probiotics strains, so it’s a good idea to talk to your doctor about which strain might be most beneficial for you. Regardless of what strain you find works best for you, one thing doesn’t change, and that is timing matters.

When you take your probiotic matters because they don’t stick around in your stomach for very long. One bowel movement and they could be gone. Probiotics are most effective in the body when it is actually in your body. So it would stand to reason that the longer a probiotic stays in your body, the better.

That’s why the best time to take probiotics is at night, right before you go to bed. As Patricia Raymond, MD, a board-certified gastroenterology and internal medicine doctor, explains, that’s because “the gut is pretty inactive at night. If you think about it, you usually don’t wake up in the middle of the night to poop. So that means that the probiotics will stay in your gut during the 8 (give or take a few hours) hours you’re in dreamland. That gives the probiotic a lot of time to stay put, divide, and even potentially become more integrated into your gut.”

Now that you know when is the best time to take probiotics, the next thing you might be wondering about is what probiotic supplements should you consider? There is a lot to choose from, but we’ve tried to take some of the guesswork out of this and suggest considering HLC High Potency by Pharmax and PureProbiotic from Pure Encapsulations.

HLC High Potency – Pharmax

Human lactic commensals (HLC) are probiotic strains that are supported by research and clinical studies. Pharmax’s HLC High Potency formula contains proprietary, non-pathogenic human-sourced microflora bacterial strains; Pharmax utilizes these strains because they have strong epithelial adherence and naturally high tolerance to stomach acid. Along with 10 billion viable cells of HLC, HLC High Potency also contains:

  • Lactobacillus acidophilus (CUL-60).
  • Lactobacillus acidophilus (CUL-21).
  • Bifidobacterium bifidum (CUL-20).
  • Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis (CUL-34).
  • Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) 100 mg.

The result is that these easy-to-take liquid drops help support a healthy, balanced digestive flora.

Pure Probiotic – Pure Encapsulations

Not only is this multi-strain probiotic formula an easy way to help support a healthy gut and immune health, but the Pure Probiotic formulation from Pure Encapsulations is allergen-free. So if you have food allergies, you can feel confident that while each capsule of Pure Probiotic will be less likely to interfere with your normal gut health. This formula also contains a blend of beneficial probiotic microorganisms, including a total of 5 billion CFU per capsule of Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Bifidobacterium bifidum, Bifidobacterium lactis, and Bifidobacterium breve. These strains may help aid gastrointestinal health and immune cell function.

When do you take your probiotics? Do you think you will start taking them at night now?