How Prebiotics and Probiotics Help Your Children

The first question comes to your mind is: what are prebiotics and what are probiotics? Very good question and before I go any further with this topic, let’s get the terminology right.

Prebiotics are referred to fibers or non-digestible carbohydrates that are food ingredients for the good bacteria to help them thrive. Galactooligosaccharides as well as fructooligosaccharides are good examples of prebiotics. Besides these two, dietary fibers like fruits and vegetables are also categorized as prebiotics.

On the other hand, probiotics are nutritional supplements that contain mostly bacteria or live organisms that give a positive impact to health, especially the digestive system. That means probiotics are good live organisms that benefit the health of digestive system by maintaining the population of good bacteria living in the gut. Two common strains of probiotics are bifidobacteria and lactobacillus.

Many food manufacturers add synbiotics to their nutritional products to help enhance the health of children and newborns. Synbiotics are actually probiotics and prebiotics that work synergistically to help boost the immune system. Bacteria is said to be started to proliferate in the gut after birth and this process continues for the rest of one’s life. Since these bacteria help prevent and fight against infections and pathogens, they are particularly important in maintaining the overall health.

Prebiotics and probiotics have been proven to have both indirect and direct effects on children’s health as according to the studies done among children and infants from the developing countries with those who suffer from diarrhea and malnutrition. Another research showed that probiotics can aid in reducing the duration of diarrhea attacks while preventing the recurrence of diarrhea.

In August 2009, a study published in the journal Paediatrics showed the example of indirect positive effects of both probiotics and prebiotics among the children. In this study, 326 children aged 3-5 were provided either with a combination of bifidobacterium animalis and lactobacillus acidophilus (or called a placebo), or lactobacillus acidophilus over a course of 6 months. This study concluded that children who were given the combination or the single probiotics had a lower risk of rhinorrhoea (or runny nose), fever and/or coughs.

Synbiotic consumption has been shown to effectively lower the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis (a medical emergency among premature babies whose tissues in the colon or intestine undergo necrotizing [or tissue death] on the cause of inflammation and infection) among premature infants. This concludes that synbiotics help reduce inflammation among children and newborns.

Other benefits of synbiotics include reducing the risk of atopic dermatitis, or chronic skin inflammation (or eczema).

Generally, the side effects of prebiotics and probiotics are minimal. This might be due to that they do not migrate to other parts of the body and they themselves are active in the gut.

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Final remark:

It is important to take note that the effectiveness of both prebiotics and probiotics are greatly dependent upon other factors, including type of bacteria and the dosage taken. It is always advisable to consult a doctor prior to giving synbiotics (prebiotics and probiotics) for your child’s daily consumption.

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As always, eat well, stay well and be happy!