The Need For Detox: 'Why we need to maintain a balanced microflora in our intestines to remain healthy'

'Why we need to maintain a balanced microflora in our intestines to remain healthy'

BBC News - Sunday, March 14, 2010

The relationship between the health of our Micro Flora in the intestines and our overall health is clearly established in this report by the BBC.  A healthy microflora contains over 40 different species of 'good bacteria' which work together to keep us in good health.  Our modern lifestyle, which involves the consumption of alcohol, antibiotics and prescription drugs, tends to deplete the friendly bacteria in our microflora and that's why we need to take probiotics in order to replenish them.. Probiotics is the name of the healthy bacteria that we need to keep healthy.   Detox programs that include high quality probiotics help fully replenish the 'friendly' bacteria we need to remain in vibrant health.

Scientists say that, 'the human intestines hold microbes containing millions of genes'.  In fact, there are more genes in the intestinal flora than in the rest of the body.  So many that they are being dubbed our 'second genome'.

A study published in the journal 'Nature', carried out to better understand how the intestinal flora is affected by disease, details the analysis of those genes.  'Basically, we are a walking bacterial colony', said Professor Jeroen Raes, one of the

researchers involved.  'There is a huge diversity.  We have about 100 times more microbial genes than human genes in the body.  We also have 10 times more bacterial cells in our body than human cells', he told BBC News.  Most of the microbes present in our bodies live in the intestines..  The study was led by Professor Jun Wang from the Beijing Genomics Institute-Shenzhen.  Scientists from Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, France and the UK also took part in the international effort, named the European MetaHIT consortium, which has been co-ordinated by Dr Stanislav Dusko Ehrlich.  'Everyone was so motivated', said Dr Dusko Ehrlich.  'To have such an exciting project to run - it's a piece of cake. The work went much faster than we expected.'  Professor Raes, who works at Vrike Universiteit Brussel, explained why the microbes warranted such an intensive study: 'Gut flora is crucial for our health. We're basically living in symbiosis with these microbes.

He added, 'The bacteria help digest food, provide vitamins, protect us from invading pathogens.  If there's a disturbance, people get all sorts of diseases such as Crohn's disease, Ulcerative colitis, and a link has also been made to obesity.'