If you spend any time on social media, chances are you’ve seen a post or an ad about probiotics. They’re promoted in TV ads, on fitness and wellness blogs, and your doctor may have even recommended you to take them. True enough, probiotics indeed promote health and wellness, among a variety of other benefits.
Wondering what health benefits probiotics can specifically provide for women? You’re in the right place! We’ll take a closer look at probiotics. We will not only go over the major benefits of probiotics for women, but also what probiotics are, how they work, and some highly recommended brands.
What Are Probiotics?
Probiotics are live microorganisms that can be found and consumed through fermented foods such as yogurt, sauerkraut, and kimchi or through probiotic supplements.
Now, if you felt weird after reading that probiotics are live microorganisms (yes, they’re bacteria!), don’t worry! As you will later see, these bacteria will benefit your gut health and your overall health. In fact, we are already all benefiting from a healthy dose and healthy levels of good bacteria in our gut – or in other words, we already have these bacteria in our gut.
While probiotics are beneficial for both gender, women will find probiotics specifically helpful because they’re more prone to gut or digestive issues such as constipation, acid reflux, and diarrhea.
How Do Probiotics Work?
To understand probiotics, you need to know that there are groups of bacteria that are already living in your gut. These groups form the gut microbiome.
Under proper circumstances, your gut microbiome provides health benefits to your gut and digestive health, but their benefits don’t end there. Aside from keeping you from running to the toilet back and forth, the benefits they bring to your gut will eventually promote overall health because gut health positively affects other areas of your health. In the same manner, an unhealthy gut will negatively affect them. This is why keeping your gut health in shape is very important.
Probiotics add up to the population of your gut microbiome although most of them would be washed out soon via bowel movement. Nevertheless, they’ll make a significant impact on your “resident” gut microbiome, so consuming them will benefit your gut microbiome, gut health, and overall health a lot.
Benefits Of Probiotics For Women
As mentioned above, women are more prone to gut and digestive issues such as diarrhea and constipation. Hence, women will benefit a lot if they take probiotics as part of their diet and supplementation.
Below are some of the main benefits women can experience from taking probiotics.
1) Promote Gut Health
Obviously, probiotics promote gut health. This is the main reason why we need to take probiotics. As mentioned above, a healthy gut means improved overall health. So, if you want to promote or optimize your health, consider taking care of your gut.
However, if you don’t have any problems with your gut health, you won’t need to consume probiotics every day.
2) Enhance Immune Function
Aside from taking care of your gut, probiotics can help you boost your immunity. So, if you often get sick, consuming probiotics can help you get through those illnesses or even avoid them.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, probiotics are shown to enhance immunity by replenishing and enriching good bacteria in our bodies. These good bacteria help your body produce certain vitamins and enzymes which can improve your overall immune function. Therefore, keeping this bacteria replenished and nourished is necessary for a fortified immune system.
3) Prevent Or Lessen Diarrhea
Probiotics primarily promote gut health, so treating, preventing or easing diarrhea is one of their specialties. However, probiotics can especially be helpful to you whenever you travel.
While it’s easy to deal with diarrhea at home, you won’t want to have it while you’re on an airplane! If you think you’ll have diarrhea problems, take some probiotic supplements with you in case of any “toilet emergency”.
4) Improve Certain Mental Conditions
A healthy gut doesn’t just spare you from the bathroom, they can keep the black clouds at bay as well! In other words, there’s a link between gut health and mental health, and studies are showing support for this.
According to some studies, supplementation of probiotic strains Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium strain within 1-2 months can help improve depression, anxiety, memory, OCD, and even autism.
Another study supported this link between probiotics and mental health. In the study of 70 chemical workers, those who took 100g of probiotic yogurt or probiotic capsule for 6 weeks experienced improvement from depression, anxiety, stress, and had improved overall health.
In other words, taking probiotics can help you deal with mental and mood problems. Cheer up!
5) Can Promote Heart Health
Probiotics can promote heart and overall cardiovascular health by lowering your blood pressure and LDL or “bad” cholesterol to healthy and manageable levels.
Aside from this, probiotics can also help you lose weight and burn off excess fat (more on this later). Excess weight adds pressure to the heart and leads to heart disease and other major diseases like diabetes. Losing weight and keeping your tummy in shape is crucial if you want to keep your heart in shape.
6) Promote Skin Health
Because gut health affects skin health, it makes sense to say that taking care of your gut is important if you want to keep your skin healthy.
Aside from promoting gut health, probiotics are also found to help people with skin issues such as eczema, acne, and rosacea.
7) Treat Vaginal Infections
Vaginal infections such as urogenital infections, vaginal yeast infections, and bacterial vaginosis could be caused by a bacterial imbalance in the vaginal microbiome. Probiotics can help you ward off these infections by promoting balance in the said microbiome.
However, if the discharge worsens and you begin to feel other problems like pain, consider consulting your doctor as it could be a sign of something serious.
8) Improve And Support Fertility
Conceiving can be tough and there are few factors that make or break it. While this is not necessarily a guarantee, probiotics can improve your chances of conceiving.
According to the Naturopathic Doctor News & Review (NDNR), if you have a good ratio of certain probiotic strains, you can improve your chances of conceiving.
9) Aid In Weight Loss And Burning Off Belly Fat
Probiotics can have certain weight-loss and fat-burning effects on our bodies. Here are some of the ways that probiotics can help you lose that excess weight or fat:
- Probiotics can help you feel fuller for a longer period of time partly by increasing levels of some hormones such as GLP-1. Since you won’t be eating much, this allows your body to burn calories and stored fats.
- Certain probiotics prevent your body from absorbing dietary fat. The fat will then be dumped through the bowel instead of being stored as body fat.
- According to one study, women who underwent dieting and took Lactobacillus rhamnosus for 3 months lost as much as 50% weight compared to women that didn’t take the said probiotic strain.
Here are just some of the interesting ways of how probiotics can help you lose weight. But needless to say, regular exercise and proper diet are still key if you want to lose weight and burn fat.
Are Probiotics For Women Safe?
In general, probiotics do not cause any potential side effects. If any, these are digestive side effects such as constipation and diarrhea, and this happens usually only if you took too many probiotics than your body actually needs.
Again, if your gut is in good shape, you may not need probiotics or you may not need to consume it regularly unlike most supplements.
Recommended Brands: Probiotics For Women
If you are looking for probiotic supplements, below are some of the top brands that you may want to check out.
OptiBac Probiotics For Women
OptiBac Probiotics For Women is a live culture probiotic supplement designed specifically for women’s health. It includes the 2 bacteria strains Lactobacillus reuteri RC-14 and Lactobacillus rhamnosus GR-1. These strains help balance vaginal flora as well as prevent/treat issues such as yeast infections, UTIs, and discomfort.
OptiBac Probiotics For Women is also dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan-friendly, and vegetarian-friendly.
GET THE BEST PRICE ON OPTIBAC PROBIOTICS FOR WOMENFlorastor Daily Probiotic Supplement
Florastor contains S. boulardii, which can help you prevent infection- or antibiotic-related diarrhea. The supplement is non-GMO and vegetarian-friendly.
If you’re worried about a possible interference with your antibiotic, the company states that the supplement will not interact with your antibiotics.
GET THE BEST PRICE ON FLORASTOR DAILY PROBIOTIC SUPPLEMENTCulturelle Digestive Daily Probiotic Capsules
Culturelle contains probiotic strain L. rhamnosus GG, a strain that can ease diarrhea and bloating and can support overall health. It also contains inulin, a prebiotic that can support the overall gut microbiome.
The supplement is vegetarian and is free of milk, gluten, and soy.
GET THE BEST PRICE ON CULTURELLE DIGESTIVE DAILY PROBIOTIC CAPSULESGarden of Life Raw Probiotics Vaginal Care
This prebiotic supplement contains around 50 billion CFU and 38 different probiotic strains including Bifidobacterium and L. acidophilus.
It also contains a blend of raw vegetables and fruits as the microbiome’s prebiotics to promote a healthy vaginal flora. The supplement is non-GMO, vegetarian and gluten- and soy-free.
GET THE BEST PRICE ON GARDEN OF LIFE RAW PROBIOTICS VAGINAL CAREBlue Biology Ultimate Care
This supplement contains 61 billion probiotic strains including S. boulardii and Bifidobacterium.
The supplement is 100% vegan and it is soy-, dairy- and wheat-free.
GET THE BEST PRICE ON BLUE BIOLOGY ULTIMATE CAREGarden of Life Raw Probiotics Women
Garden of Life contains a whopping 85 billion CFU and around 33 different types of probiotic strains, including Bifidobacterium and L. acidophilus. Aside from that, they contain key vitamins such as vitamins C, D, and E.
GET THE BEST PRICE ON GARDEN OF LIFE RAW PROBIOTICS WOMENFinal Verdict: You Should Try Out Probiotics For Women
If you are having any form of digestive health issues or even overall health issues, adding probiotics to your daily routine may be the answer. Probiotics are extremely beneficial for anyone to take, but especially women due to the overwhelming amount that have gut-health problems.
These are safe to take, but make sure to check with to check with a trusted doctor or dietician before taking them.
