If as far as you’ve ever gotten with miso was a simple soup before sushi, get ready to enchant your taste buds. Miso sounds straightforward: a paste made from fermented soybeans, used by Chinese people over 2000 years ago. Later, the Japanese got creative and added rice to make a sweet miso or barley to […]
Articles
Gardnerella Not as Pretty as They Sound
Vaginal infections are one of the most common reasons women head to the doctor or pharmacy. Antibiotics can challenge the culprit—most often Gardnerella vaginalis, a bacterium named for its home invasion address—but all too often the infection returns with a vengeance. Healthy premenopausal women predominantly host lactobacilli which produce antimicrobial substances such as hydrogen peroxide, lactic acid […]
Probiotics Are Picky Eaters
Like children, probiotics must be fed. That’s where prebiotics come in. With technical names like inulin, dextrin and oligosaccharides, prebiotics sound less than appetizing, akin to feeding a human a carbohydrate and amino acid sandwich. Yet all sorts of delicious foods stack up as great feeders for your microbes: artichokes, bananas, garlic, and asparagus are just […]
Caesarean Delivery Linked to Obesity
Each person’s microbial map is unique. Some lead to excess kilos on the scale. From the beginning: Your mother’s earliest choices design your blend. If delivered naturally, your mother’s birth canal is the first place microbes jump aboard. But if delivered by caesarean, newborns miss out on the mother’s mix of microbes and instead populate with pirate […]
Cold Comfort
The nagging cough and stuffy nose–the downsides of living among people and pollutants–are strangers to only the lucky few. Yet, most probiotic research involving respiratory conditions has focused on vulnerable subsets of the population: infants, the elderly, the sedentary or even the elite athlete facing extreme physical stress. Probiotics may reduce the rate, severity and […]
Probiotics Gain in Popularity
Recent survey results on supplement usage are worth a look. In more than 10,000 users of dietary supplements, use of calcium, vitamin C and even fish oil, the most popular supplement, decreased. Probiotics usage increased in men, numbers which brought them more even with women. The authors of this study at ConsumerLab.com had this posted […]