Good bacteria: Probiotic drinks are supposed to boost our immunity

Probiotics, or the friendly bacteria which naturally occur in our digestive tract, is the latest fad among health freaks. The friendly bugs are not only prescribed by doctors as powders or pills but health-care companies are packaging them into beverages, cheese and even bread-spreads.

If the advertiser’s promises are to be believed, friendly bacteria can make you sleeker, smarter and boost your immune system. Doctors say that these bugs can replenish the natural “micro-flora” of the gut vanquished by their frequent prescription of antibiotics.

Do probiotics work? Do they counteract the antibiotics? According to Dr Martin Blaser, although both medical scientists and laypersons have been looking for an ideal probiotic, they are yet to find a suitable friendly microbe that can be ingested to boost our health. “The earliest studies focused on the Lactobacillus species, the bacteria that make yogurt and cheeses, but the effects of reintroduction were, at best, of marginal value,” wrote Blaser in a recent issue of the Scientific American.

“Most of the food supplements being marketed as probiotics contain little health benefit,” concurred Dr Asish Mukhopadhyay. “Either there are too few of them in a particular product to offer any health gains or they haven’t undergone any proper clinical testing.”

Blaser, however, had another point to stress upon: how likely was it that a newcomer bug, unrelated to the bacteria in our body, accepted in the stomach.

Existing organisms like H. pylori or E. coli have cohabited with us and thrived for thousands of years in our body. They are the ones who eliminate total strangers from our body.