Treating Diarrhea with Probiotics?

You may be hearing about how probiotics are good for your health, but how exactly can they help you improve your health? Probiotics are "friendly" bacteria and yeasts that have a beneficial therapeutic effect. Most probiotics are already a part of the normal flora in your body. Your body needs bacteria to digest food, absorb nutrients, metabolize drugs and prevent infection of disease-causing bacteria. The purpose of taking probiotics is to restore them in areas of the body where they are normally found. Different strains of probiotics have different health benefits, such as improving urinary health, vaginal health and gut health.

The probiotics Saccharomyces boulardii can treat and prevent diarrhea.

Taking this probiotic while on antibiotic therapy can reduce the risk of diarrhea by 50-60%.

Antibiotics kill bacteria that are a part of the normal flora of the body, which can lead to diarrhea, cramping and infection of disease-causing bacteria such as C. difficile. Probiotics compete with disease-causing bacteria for attachment sites and produce substances which break down toxins made by disease-causing bacteria. This probiotic can also treat diarrhea caused by viruses and overgrowth of bacteria and help prevent travellers' diarrhea.