Dairy Buzz

Obesity is one of the most dangerous conditions when it comes to health. In its wake you find diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases and high cholesterol. Which is why very often, doctors advise gastric bypass surgery when a patient’s health condition really turns bad. This kind of surgery has seen dramatic improvements in blood pressure levels as well as diabetes.

Stanford University conducted a study on patients after they had undergone this surgery and presented their findings during the 2008 Digestive Disease Week. What they did was to observe two groups post-surgery. One group was given placebos, the other was given probiotics. This group was given 2.4 billion lactobacilli everyday for six months. Tests were conducted on them soon after the surgery, after three months and then after six months.

What was incredible was what a positive effect probiotics had on them. They lost more weight than the other group and they had lower fasting insulin, better cholesterol levels and lower H2 breath tests.

What this throws up is the possibility that weight gain could just be due to bacteria and when probiotics are given, the good bacteria obviously dislodge the bad ones from the gut and populate it with friendly bacteria which keeps a person healthy.

The only thing to be particular about is to ensure that the probiotic cultures are live bacteria because only then will they have any positive effect.