Did you know there are about 100 trillion bacteria in or around your body right now? Don’t worry—that’s a good thing. Probiotics are the friendly microbes in your gut that help support digestive and immune health.* Below are 10 surprising facts to help you better understand these good-for-you bacteria and how they operate and interact with your body.
- You have roughly 10X more bacterial cells than human cells in your body—that’s over 100 trillion!
- The human body has more than 1,000 different strains that include beneficial bacteria and yeasts, and each individual has his or her own unique population of microbes, like an intestinal thumbprint.
- Probiotics in your gut help you digest food and absorb nutrients.*
- With at least 70% of the immune system living in the gut, probiotics are known to support immune health.*
- Everyday factors such as stress, diet and aging can reduce the number of beneficial bacteria in the body.
- Probiotics help reduce inflammation in the gut, which helps provide nutrition for the cells of the intestinal lining.*
- Microbes in your body outweigh your brain. The brain weighs about 3 pounds, and a healthy human body has more than 3.5 pounds of good bacteria.
- Probiotics can be found naturally in fermented, uncooked foods such as yogurt, kefir, cottage cheese, sauerkraut, pickled veggies, miso, tempeh, kombucha, natto and kimchi.
- Probiotics are ingested and mainly colonize the gut, but their health benefits extend throughout the body—including the skin, mouth and nose.*
- Gut bacteria play an important role in manufacturing important vitamins, including vitamin A, vitamin B12, and vitamin K.*
