The moment to take probiotics: Probiotics are dietary supplements that consist of the beneficial bacteria that occur naturally in your intestinal tract. Environmental factors such as stress, processed foods, chemicals in food and water, pollution, radiation, and certain medications can negatively impact the diversity and number of good bacteria that live in the gut.
Probiotic dietary supplements aim to maintain and restore the natural diversity of intestinal bacteria.
There are many probiotic supplements on the market, each with different recommended intake instructions. With so many different instructions, you may be wondering how to get the most out of your supplement.
So when is the best time of day to take probiotics and why is it important?
Time for probiotics Does time matter?
Yes, time does matter. First of all, consistency is the key. To get the optimal health benefits of probiotics, it’s best to take the supplement daily. Establishing a routine for when to take your probiotic can make it easier to remember.
The natural environment of probiotic bacteria is the small and large intestine. That’s where they perform all their goodness to strengthen digestion, the immune system and help in many other critical functions.
To get there they have to go through the stomach where the environment is very acidic. In fact, your stomach is designed to kill any harmful bacteria and viruses that may enter your body through food and water. For probiotic bacteria, this is bad news as prolonged exposure to stomach acid kills them.
Therefore, the goal is to get the probiotics through the stomach acid as quickly as possible. For this, it is recommended to take probiotics ideally on an empty stomach (ie 2-3 hours after the last meal and 30 minutes before the next), so that the probiotic bacteria can move through the stomach as quickly as possible.
The composition of the food can help
Everything you eat and drink stays in the stomach for some time as the stomach secretes stomach acid and digestive enzymes. The heavier the food and the more you eat, the longer it will take for the food to pass from the stomach to the small intestine.
It is recommended that many probiotics be taken on an empty stomach to ensure they pass through the stomach quickly and have as little exposure to hostile stomach acid as possible. Even probiotics that come in stomach acid-resistant capsules benefit from moving through the stomach as quickly as possible to ensure the capsule doesn’t break open until it reaches the large intestine.
Many people see an improvement in the effectiveness of probiotics if they take them before breakfast as part of their morning routine. If you eat before or after taking your probiotics, it’s best to make it a small, easily digestible meal or light snack.
The role that stomach acid plays
The acidic environment of your stomach plays an important role in the body’s digestion process. Stomach acid helps break down carbohydrates and proteins and kills germs that enter your body through your mouth.
The pH value of the stomach is between 1.7 and 2.0. The pH value increases throughout the small intestine to a pH of 7.0 in some parts of the large intestine. Most of the beneficial bacteria in your digestive system live in the small and large intestines due to the higher pH value.
Prolonged exposure to the acidic environment of the stomach can kill beneficial bacteria, which is why timing probiotics is so important.
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