LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) - If you walk down a medicine or dairy aisle, no doubt you will see probiotic packages with hard to pronounce ingredients.
While spelling words like "lactobacillus" and "bifidobacterium" can be difficult, pediatrician Dr. Anatole Karpovs with The Children's Clinic of Southwest Louisiana says the task of these probiotics is a pretty simple one.
"A probiotic is a microscopic organism that can be beneficial when you take it in a sufficient amount, it might benefit your health in some way," he said.
Dr. Karpovs says probiotics help restore normal bacteria in your child's gut, boosting natural immune defenses, and promoting digestive health.
"Oftentimes it does help if you have chronic diarrhea-type illnesses or bad gastroenteritis," he said. "I've also seen some studies showing that it may benefit for prevention of certain kinds of stomach viruses or occasionally I've seen studies about cold symptoms."
So why do we need to put bacteria into our bodies? Dr. Karpovs says it's because we have reduced the amount of good bacteria in our surroundings through disinfecting and in our bodies through antibiotics.
"Many times we've learned early on that bacteria are bad for us, we have to sanitize everything, we have to stay really clean or else we get infections from bacteria, but actually that ends up being just a very small percentage of bacteria that we come into contact," said Dr. Karpovs.
With so many options on the market, Dr. Karpovs says it is best to go with name brands in stores, versus shopping around online. He also says yogurts can help, along with a balanced diet that can offer prebiotics.
"The more fruits and vegetables that you eat, whole grains, nuts, things like that. Those kind of things help establish those normal bacteria within your system," said Dr. Karpovs.
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