Health Food Guide

 

You may not be as weak as you think when it comes to losing weight. It may just be that you don’t have enough bacteria. A study reported in the “American Journal of Clinical Nutrition” reported that when two groups received food supplements, one a placebo and the other oligofructose, the group getting the oligofructose lost more weight.

 

Oligofructose is a prebiotic that helps feed the intestinal bifidobacteria. These bacteria have an effect on the production of the hunger hormone, ghrelin. They also help produce a satiation hormone in the gut that increases your feeling of being full. Studies show thinner people have less of the hunger hormone ghrelin. By creating a beneficial environment for production of bacteria that lowers the hormone, the overweight group taking oligofructose lost weight while the overweight group taking a placebo actually gained weight. The reason was simple. They felt fuller.

 

The scientists that did the research, Jill Parnell and Raylene Reimer, researchers at the University of Calgary, believe that the addition of prebiotic inulin particularly the subgroup oligofructose, may be the solution to the problem of why some people overeat.

 

The inulin naturally occurs in foods such as asparagus, onions, bananas and garlic. The American diet often lacks consumption of these foods in preference to highly processed foods containing none of the inulin fiber or consumption of food that deters the growth of beneficial bacteria, today’s population may have a shortage of both the probiotic inulin/oligofructose in their diet. Because there’s no food for them, the friendly bacterial level drops and soon those with lower levels become eating machines. Is it any wonder that the newest American plague is not cancer, but overweight?

 

The addition of this prebiotic to the diet also gives other benefits besides the helping overweight people feel full. They also help improve the digestive functions, manage the levels of insulin in diabetes and even improve your teeth and bones. It boosts the absorption of the calcium in the body to do this.

 

As research continues, scientists not only find out more about the body but also the trillions of critters that live inside and act as workers to keep it healthy. Until recently bacteria received a bad rap from the medical community, but now they know, “It just ain’t so.” Some are manufacturers of substances necessary to keep the body healthy, some do the job of policing the bad bacteria and keeping them and the fungi in check, while another group may help you police your own cravings for food, thus keeping off those unwanted pounds. So when you hear the words probiotic and prebiotic, don’t run for the antiseptic but think ecosystem and healthy.