Page 6 - TL Extra April 2016

6TT • FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 2016 EXTRA ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE TRI-LAKES EDITION OF THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
digestive nutrition}
HEALTH, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 While probiotics are the good bacteria you
need to keep your gut health, McGee said there are some not-so-good bacteria that also naturally occur in the digestive tract. If those bad bacteria overtake the good bacteria, the result can be abdominal pain, diarrhea or mal- absorption. Malabsorption means that even if you eat and drink the right foods and nutrients, your body might not properly absorb these nu- trients, which can cause health issues. McGee said poor digestion can also cause a person to have to make frequent trips to the bathroom, which can affect their lifestyle or job.
“That takes up a lot of your time,” he said. “You’re losing productivity from work. Say you’re a teacher, or say you’re working at a desk, and you’re having to get up and run to the bathroom numerous times a day. It’s lost productivity.”
The current probiotic trend, McGee said, is a
result of the fact that people are becoming more aware of their health and well-being. While the focus started with physical well-being through exercise, people have started to look internally to help keep themselves healthy.
“We’ve had this trend toward becoming healthy ever since at least the ’80s,” he said. “You’ve had people like Richard Simmons do- ing videos and Billy Blanks, so people started thinking of physical health. Well, that’s just continued as we’ve grown and learned more.
“We’ve learned there are things to do to make your heart healthy, and with the rise of cancer and people knowing more about cancer and cancer prevention — colon cancer, things like that — then it was just a natural progression to get to gut health, which is where we are now.”
As for how often a person should take probi- otics, McGee said, it all depends on the person. If a person is having digestive issues, he sug- gests consulting with a medical professional to make a plan. For patients who are not having
Kombucha is a fermented tea that can help support a healthy digestive tract.The drink is made using a colony of yeast and bacteria.
digestive issues, he might not suggest taking probiotics at all.
There are a variety of options available to those looking to add probiotics to their diet, McGee said. There are capsules that can be taken daily, powders that can be sprinkled on food or mixed into a drink, and chews that can be eaten. There are also a variety of foods — such as kimchi, sour pickles, kombucha, sauerkraut, sourdough bread and miso soup — that have natural probiotics.
Yogurt is also a good source of probiotics in that some brands can have tens of millions of bacte- ria per serving, he said. McGee said finding the right way to take probiotics is often the most important part of including them in the diet.
“I think that’s the most difficult thing, finding the proper probiotic that is going to be palat- able to a person,” he said. “I can guarantee you; no matter how good you say something is for a person, if it’s nasty, they’re not going to take it.”
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Kimchi is a fermented Korean vegetable dish that contains probiotics.