Good bacteria? Are you kidding me? Don't we spend about as much battling bacteria every year as we spend fighting the evil doers?
Well, maybe not that much, but we do have a serious microbe phobia in this country and the idea of actually ingesting live bacterial cultures is anathema in our culture of obsessive cleanliness.
It would surprise most people to know that our bodies play host to literally billions of bacteria. Even more surprising is the fact that these same bacteria, our naturally occurring micro flora, are in many ways responsible for keeping us healthy as opposed to making us sick.
Probiotics are literally beneficial species of bacteria that have been shown to have health benefits in a wide variety of different animal species including humans, dogs and cats.
So what do these "good bugs" actually do for us? First of all consider the following facts. The intestinal tract is the largest immune organ in the body representing 70% of our immune capability. The intestinal tract is also one of the key points of entry of various disease causing organisms. That's why it's such a good idea to wash our hands so frequently, especially during the holiday party season. Bacteria and viruses are easily spread with a handshake from an infected individual followed by popping a tasty canape into our highly vulnerable mouths.
Probiotics help keep us healthy by promoting a healthy environment in our intestinal tract. They help maintain the proper pH balance, help promote good intestinal mobility, help produce certain vitamins and help digest certain types of carbohydrates.
Even more importantly, from a disease fighting standpoint, probiotics produce substances that inhibit the growth of pathogenic (disease causing) bacteria. Probiotics also keep the host healthy by colonizing the digestive tract and preventing bad bacteria from being able to get a foothold. They are literally better competitors for food and places to set up house keeping than disease causing bacteria.
Another key benefit of probiotics is their ability to stimulate the hosts immune system. Probiotics do this by stimulating the immune cells that line the intestinal tract. They also stimulate the production of important disease fighting antibodies. Think of the immune system as your own disease fighting army. Probiotics in effect, recruit and train more troops to be on the look out for enemy invaders.
Those enemy invaders can take the form of disease causing bacteria like salmonella and e.coli, intestinal viruses like parvo virus, and parasites like giardia.
Numerous clinical studies in both dogs, cats and people have demonstrated these benefits. One of my favorites that really helps illustrate the benefits for mothers involves a trial done at a day care center. It's hard to imagine a better breeding ground and disease transmission location than a daycare center. Unless it's a kennel of course.
In this study one group of children at the center were given probiotics for a period of time and then monitored for sickness. It turns out that the kids receiving probiotics came down with significantly less diarrhea than those kids that didn't get any.
We've done a number of probiotic studies with dogs and cats at Purina. These studies have shown that our preferred strain of probiotics is safe for dogs and cats, successfully colonizes the GI tract of dogs and cats and is effective in stimulating the dog's immune system.
There are a number of probiotic containing products for people, dogs and cats. Dairy drinks and yogurt products are most commonly used in people because these types of products can be kept refrigerated which is a big help in keeping the probiotics alive and effective. Delivering the right dose of live bugs is critical to the effectiveness of probiotics.
Heat and moisture are the big killers of probiotics. In my experience dry pet foods can be exposed to very high heat during transportation and storage. While this has very little effect on the nutrition of the product it would be death for most probiotics. Personally, I'd be skeptical of claims by dry pet food manufacturers with products containing probiotics unless they could provide me with guarantees about the numbers of live bacteria the product would deliver to the dog or cat and whether they had data on how many survived long enough to set up shop in the gut. Without this information a claim about containing probiotics means very little in terms of potential health benefits.
On the other hand there is one product that can provide this information and I'm proud to say that I worked on it during my last year at Purina. The product is called Fortiflora and is available in veterinary offices under the Purina Veterinary Diet line. Fortiflora is a dry powder that can be sprinkled on pet food. It's been thoroughly tested and is guaranteed to deliver the effective dose of live bugs.
It's available for both dogs and cats and is a very good way to help keep them healthy and happy. Next time you go to the vet ask them about it and give it a try. It's especially useful if your dog or cat is around other animals or is exposed to stressful situations like boarding, dog or cat shows and obedience or field trials.
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