Aging and GI Issues: Probiotics

The struggle with aging is that everything in your body undergoes changes – your bones, your skin, your joints, and even your digestive system. These changes often occur at different rates and stages in your life, so it’s extremely important to understand the best ways to keep all those individual moving parts at their optimal health and keep your body running as best as you can.

It seems like so many health conditions are tied to diet, exercise, and weight. Gut health as you age is not exempt from that. As the body ages, a healthy diet becomes even more important to maintaining good health. Increased age often leads to less healthy eating, slower digestion, and a reduction in gastric acid production. All of these factors can lead to an unhealthy and improper balance of bacteria in the stomach and intestines, which can further compromise the digestive tract and your overall digestive health. This often presents itself with symptoms like bloating and constipation, but the underlying cause can be helped with the use probiotics to ensure proper gut health.

So how can you make sure that your digestive system runs properly and keeps the rest of your digestive health on the right track? Probiotics can help maintain a proper balance of healthy microorganisms in the digestive tract, which are the ones that aid in digestion and immunity. They can be especially important when you have been taking an antibiotic, as antibiotics are often known to kill gut bacteria as a side effect. Probiotics can be taken in multiple forms – pills, powders, or even ones naturally occurring in food like yogurt, fermented foods, kefir and others.

Since probiotic supplements aren’t regulated by the FDA, it is important to discuss them with your doctor before taking them. There are multiple forms, and many different brands, so your doctor should be able to advise you what will work with your individual set of circumstances. If you’d like to talk about your concerns or are thinking about adding a probiotic to your vitamin routine, find your nearest TDDC location  and make an appointment today!