A Thrift Life Well Lived: Unless you are supping on sauerkraut, enter this GIVEAWAY!

I was given a month supply of Microbiome Plus+ Gastrointestinal probiotic to review. I have taken many probiotics over the years as they have so many health benefits (which I will review later). I like to think of them as fish oil for the gut (vs the brain). With this many benefits why wouldn't you take them?

Now, I am not a big pill popper and don't like to take a supplement without a hefty amount of research backing up the benefits, but clinical studies have established that probiotic therapy can help treat several gastrointestinal ills, delay the development of allergies in children, and treat and prevent vaginal and urinary infections in women. Speaking of the vagina, did you know you can indeed administer probiotics straight to the area of need, if indeed this is your area of need. Not sure about rectal administration, but sure beats a fecal transplant any day (sorry I am slightly obsessed with odd medical procedures)

I noticed that the Microbiome package states that they shouldn't be given to those under the age of twelve without consulting a doctor, but if that is what you need I say call up that doc. After all, there are so many things that probiotics have been proven to do for children and no research that I could find seem to show any negative effect on children. In fact, the L. Reuteri bacteria is found to pass through breastmilk without even the smallest negative impact on infants, while decreasing the incidence of infant specific ailments including necrotizing enterocolitis.

One important thing to do when taking probiotics is to make sure that the strain you are taking has proven effects on your particular ailment. The probiotic contained in Microbiome Plus+ is L. Reuteri. L. Reuteri is found to have many health benefits, including but not limited to decreasing the symptoms of colic in infants, preventing tooth decay and decreasing the occurence of gingivitis in adults, preventing ulcers, and treating rotavirus. Children and adults who take L. Reuteri display higher immunity and decreased sickness.

But Microbiome Plus+ is not only probiotics. With Microbiome Plus+ you take two pills twice per day. One is the probiotic, but the other is a prebiotic. I never fully understood this, but after doing a bit of research my understanding is that Prebiotics are food for probiotics.

That is, with the administration of prebiotics, the probiotics are more able to do their work. Again, I can't see a reason not to do this.

So, unless you are supping on sauerkraut and yogurt nightly, I suggest you give these a try.