Can Probiotics Help With Weight Loss? The Best Strains to Buy and Why

Probiotics help to keep your gut balanced. A poor diet, antibiotics, and a lack of exercise can allow harmful bacterial strains to dominate your gut. When this happens not only is your digestion impacted, but your immune system and your weight can take a hit too.

Probiotics help to promote health from within and can ensure that you also keep off those unwanted pounds.

Understanding Weight Gain Through Bacteria

There are hundreds of different microorganisms living within your gut, and their actions can promote or damage your health, depending on whether the strain is beneficial or not.

Good strains not only break down fiber that your body is unable to digest, but they produce beneficial nutrients in the process, such as vitamin K, some B vitamins, and valuable short-chain fatty acids.

Among the varied bacteria in your gut, there are two families thought to play a role in weight management. The balance within your gut of bacteroidetes and firmicutes families of bacteria has been linked to weight gain.

Obese participants were found to have significantly higher levels of firmicutes and lower levels of bacteroidetes than healthy individuals. Studies with mice have even gone so far as to see if transplanting bacteria into a non-obese individual can lead to weight gain.  

When the gut bacteria of overweight mice are put into healthy mice, the once-lean individuals gain weight and get fatter. If gut bacteria play a role in weight gain, then it is fair to say that probiotics will also have an effect, as the term simply is a collective term for different beneficial bacterial strains.

Some probiotics can inhibit the absorption of fat, which means you excrete more fat, so there is less around for storage. By harvesting fewer calories from your diet, your weight can be more easily maintained. Specifically, bacteria belonging to the Lactobacillus family have been found to act in this way and can support the maintenance of a healthy weight.

In addition to this, probiotics can help with weight control by triggering the release of GLP-1, a hormone responsible for the reduction of appetite. When levels of this hormone are elevated, you feel full longer and your body burns more calories and fat.

The protein ANGPTL4 is also produced in the presence of certain probiotics, and it helps to reduce the amount of fat storage in your body. Broad spectrum probiotics can work on multiple levels to keep excess weight off.

Happy Bacteria Can Control Your Weight

Systemic inflammation is a likely contributor to weight gain and obesity, and probiotics can help to keep inflammation under control. By keeping your gut in balance, probiotics help to prevent inflammation that is triggered by a leaky gut (the outcome of an unbalanced gut environment).

When toxins are allowed to leak through intestinal walls, your natural inflammatory response targets these roaming toxins and systemic inflammation occur. Unfortunately, signs of inflammation are not always obvious either.

Uncontrolled inflammation not only increases your risk of serious diseases, but it can contribute to unnecessary weight gain too. Fat cells are capable of releasing inflammatory marker signals, which only perpetuate the inflammatory response.

The more fat cells you have, the worse things will get. In return, inflammation interferes with your metabolism which promotes the storage of fat cells and a vicious cycle is born.

A balanced diet can remove those foods that are contributing to inflammation in the first place. A diet high in sugars and calories not only causes excess fat storage but allows harmful bacterial strains to colonize in your gut.

Even with probiotics helping to keep the balance, you need to address your diet in order to ensure inflammation and weight gain are kept under control. To support a healthy gut and minimize inflammation and weight gain, there are a few dietary tips you must follow.

♦ Eat plenty of antioxidant foods to reduce oxidative damage that triggers inflammation

♦ Eat fewer unhealthy fats and more foods with omega-3 fatty acids

♦ Avoid processed and convenience foods, which are high in sugar, fat, and additives

♦ Eat more probiotic foods like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, and kimchi to give additional support to your gut microbes.

Studies have found that when inflammation is reduced, it is easier to keep weight off. Losing weight can be achieved through a healthy and balanced diet, regular exercise, and probiotic support.

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Exercise will help to burn those unwanted fat cells and probiotics will restore balance to an unhealthy gut. This reduces inflammation, promotes optimal digestive health and supports a healthy weight loss program.

Lose Weight With Probiotics

While the specifics of how probiotics impact weight are still being researched, there is a clear link between your gut microbiome and weight. There seem to be several mechanisms by which probiotics can improve gut health and promote weight loss, or at the very least maintenance of a healthier weight.

The results largely depend upon the type of probiotic, as certain bacterial strains seem to provide specific results. Be sure to buy doctor formulated, organic probiotics supplements containing the Lactobacillus strains.

The Bottom Line

The benefits of probiotics go far beyond that of weight loss. Fighting inflammation, preventing disease, and fighting anxiety or depression are just a few of the benefits you can see when probiotics are part of your life.

Probiotics promote good health from within. By balancing your gut and preventing inflammation you can prevent disease as well as unnecessary weight gain. A daily dose of probiotics will ensure that your digestion stays on track and your immunity soars.

So long as you choose a probiotic with the right strains, you can also shed those unwanted pounds and promote a healthier weight and overall healthier you.

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