Could a probiotic a day become as important as an apple a day or a one-a-day multivitamin—the best employee benefit of all? After all, scientific study suggests that workers who take probiotics daily are less likely to be off work with common illnesses, such as colds and gastroenteritis, than workers who don’t.

An exploratory study published in the open access journal Environmental Health (2005;4:25) shows that workers who took a daily dose of probiotic bacteria were 2.5 times less likely to take sick leave than workers who took a placebo.

Talk about getting your money’s worth! For a few cents a day, everyone benefits. Employees, of course, love their improved health—and it’s absolutely true that taking a quality probiotic a day can really bolster your overall health! The employer has healthier, more motivated employees.

But there’s more than this study alone that suggests a probiotic a day might be as important as a multivitamin, especially for safely supporting overall immune and gastrointestinal health. In fact, researchers have always suspected that there’s more to the probiotic story than gastrointestinal health alone. That is because the gastrointestinal tract is also home of the body’s immune system.  More white blood cells, the sentinels of the immune system, are produced in the gut than anywhere else in the human body.

Researchers from the Department of Nutrition, Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the University of California reported January 22, 2009, in the Journal of Gastroenterology 44(1):26-46, “There is now substantial evidence that probiotics can also provide benefits by modulating immune functions.”

They say that taking probiotics regularly is very likely to head off inflammatory disorders of the bowel such as colitis “by down-regulating” inflammatory messengers called cytokines.

By supporting gastrointestinal health, probiotics make a huge contribution to workplace health. Many health professionals claim that gastrointestinal and digestive problems are among the number-one reasons for seeing the doctor. But antacids and other medications only mask symptoms. Taking probiotic supplements daily builds a foundation of bacterial health in the gut, seat of the body’s overall health.

Probiotics also help during allergy season—biological studies that show they reduce allergen sensitization and incidence of asthma and allergic rhinitis. It is thought that each probiotic strain offers its own benefits to down-regulate allergen-specific immunoglobulins (again by supporting healthy cytokine activity).

And, of course, we know that beneficial bacteria are integral to detoxifying toxins in the gut; for producing antioxidants as well as vitamins, enzymes and other vital nutrients; and for absorbing and using the nutrients in food. A probiotic a day is simply indispensible—as indispensible and as necessary to supplement as a multivitamin, and even quite possibly, better than one for employee benefits!

 

Resources

When you do use probiotics, use a brand that you can trust, proven to provide specific age-appropriate safe strains of beneficial bacteria clinically proven safe and effective. DDS® strains, researched at the University of Nebraska, are the leader in health and quality. Passing all independent tests to which they have been subjected, studied clinically and in the laboratory, DDS lactobacillus and bifidus strains are age specific from infants to adults, adjusted to provide the right balance for each period of life. (For example, babies also benefit tremendously from probiotics daily for colic and other early digestive difficulties, but their flora are different than that of an adult, and their supplement is usually mixed with their food.) DDS probiotics from UAS Labs can be purchased at health food stores and other fine retailers. Visit http://www.uaslabs.com/ for more information.

Furtw.probioticrevolution.net