Changes

* GOS, the Stand-In Prebiotic : Mother’s milk is most likely the first prebiotic you’ve ever taken when you first stepped into this world. Besides being rich in lactose, human milk also contains non-digestible oligosaccharides which are favored by bifidobacteria and lactobacilli.More than just a source of food, studies found that babies who were given breast milk were fitter than those who were formula-fed. They suffered less colds and were less prone to allergic diseases. One of the reasons, researchers believed, is due to a richer gut microflora supported by the oligosaccharide content in mother’s milk. But if for some reasons you can’t breast feed your baby, all is not lost. While it’s still not possible to replicate breast milk, we can reproduce the prebiotic effects of human milk oligosaccharides using galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) or other prebiotics. GOS are compounds produced through the enzymatic conversion of lactose from cow’s milk. Judging from the results of some studies, including this one, the gastrointestinal colonisation of infants that were given GOS-enriched formula was similar to babies who were given the real thing.

* [[Inulin]] : Inulins refer to a group of polysaccharides made up of fructose that can’t be digested by humans. It is found in many plants and fruits such as Jerusalem artichoke, chicory root, garlic, yacon, jicama, leek, onion, asparagus, burdock and banana, though the amount in most of them is believed to be too low to exert any significant positive effects.Among all the prebiotics, inulin is perhaps the most widely known and studied. In several in vitro and human studies, inulin appeared to have the most impact on the growth of bifidobacteria, multiplying their populations in as short as seven days of consumption. In some studies, populations of invasive microbes were also reduced (source).A dose of about five to eight grams of inulin per day should be enough to favorably change the composition of the gut microbiota. Over-consumption of inulin, however, could cause gas and bloating, especially among sensitive individuals. So it’s important to monitor your physiological responses to look out for symptoms of overdose. Due to its availability and potential health benefits, inulin has been increasingly added to supplements and foods as a sugar, fat or flour replacement, dietary fiber and of course, prebiotic.

* [[Pectin]] : a soluble fiber found in fruits and vegetables — is better known as a gelling agent in jams and jellies than as a prebiotic. But do you know that pectin actually packs a number of health-promoting benefits, including some gut-cleaning prebiotic goodness?In a study which appeared in BMC Microbiology, rats that ate a diet high in apple pectin had reduced levels of pathogenic bacteria but higher amounts of friendly bacteria than rodents that fed on whole apples, apple juice, puree or pomace. Kiwifruit pectin also displayed prebiotic potential in an in vitro study which found that the pectin helped Lactobacillus rhamnosus adhered better to intestinal cells than inulin, while reducing the adhesion of undesirable bacterium Salmonella typhimurium, the nasty microorganism behind a number of multistate outbreaks in the US. That may explain why pigs which were fed a diet containing freeze-dried kiwifruit or kiwifruit fiber had more beneficial bacteria and less harmful ones when compared to swine on the control diet in a separate research. But pectin is more than just a prebiotic. Researchers have long known that pectin can help to lower blood cholesterol levels, particularly very-low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (VLDL) particles which gets converted into low-density lipoprotein (‘bad’ cholesterol) in the blood. In 2010, a team of scientists from University of Illinois also suggested that citrus-based pectin is also capable of turning angry, inflammatory immune cells into anti-inflammatory, healing cells that speeds up recovery from infection.

* [[Millet]] acts as a prebiotic feeding microflora in your inner ecosystem.