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The Digestive System
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The Digestive System
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It is well established that a balanced microflora in the digestive system plays an important role in maintaining healthy intestinal function. It helps us get the best nutrients from our food, helps protect us against internal infections and also helps maintain a healthy immune system.
However, this balance can easily be disrupted by a number of factors, such as antibiotic therapy, inadequate nutrition, travel, surgery, inflammatory bowel diseases and ageing.
Each one of us has a population of over 400 different species of bacteria with a total in excess of 100 trillion - this is more bacteria than there are people on the planet! The make-up of this is dependant on a number of factors including your diet, age etc. and the majority of these bacteria are essential for good health (probiotic) but the remainder are pathogenic and could become harmful.
These pathogenic bacteria can include E. coli and Salmonella which, in small quantities, are kept under control by the probiotic bacteria. However, if the balance is disrupted, the pathogenic bacteria can overgrow in the intestine causing digestive upsets.
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