Ask The Doctor

For the record, regularity is vitally important to your overall health.  If you are experiencing symptoms of gastrointestinal distress, you’ve probably forgotten just how great you can feel when your system is functioning optimally.  Most people don’t know this, but problems in your GI tract can also affect your energy levels, your immune system, your sleep, your mood and your overall sense of wellbeing.   Yet many of us, especially those of us who’d like to think we are “aging gracefully,” avoid dealing with digestive problems because we think it is just a normal consequence of aging and so we don’t even look for a solution.  We just live with it.  We might lather anti-aging creams on our skin but do nothing about our insides.  But it’s important to remember that we age from the inside out… so taking care of our insides is important.  Sometimes we’re ashamed to admit we have these problems so we just put up with them – not realizing that they may be affecting our overall quality of life. There is no need to suffer because there are simple, safe solutions to intestinal distress.

 

The truth is that we can experience flatulence, bloating, cramping, occasional constipation and urgency when our body isn’t properly digesting the foods we eat.  The potential causes are numerous:  overeating, stress, poor food choices and eating habits, aging, lack of exercise, even food sensitivities can all be contributing factors.  But the root of the problem may be simple.  For whatever reason, food may have not been completely digested is arriving in your GI tract –where it triggers a vicious cycle of events that can lead to intestinal distress and the uncomfortable and embarrassing symptoms we all know.

 

Now, your GI tract is actually a little world unto itself, populated with many, many trillions (100 trillion, on average) of naturally occurring bacteria, some of which you might consider friendly, and some, not so much.  The health and function of your gastrointestinal tract is supported by a balanced population of the friendly and not so friendly sorts, called Microflora.  The friendly bacteria’s job is to maintain a balanced population of bacteria and protect the lining of your GI tract, so that the other not-so-friendly, indigenous bacteria can’t overgrow and increase in population producing excess gas and toxins which can be responsible for the gastrointestinal distress symptoms. But incompletely digested food entering your gut gives those unfriendly bacteria an opportunity to stick around and increase in number. They feed on the partially digested food, and begin a fermentation process in your GI tract that generates toxins and  gas… and suddenly your embarrassing “secret” may be no longer  be a secret.

 

Once your GI tract is compromised this way, you need some kind of “crisis intervention” to bring things back into balance; and, since there is no pill that can restore friendly intestinal Microflora, other simple, safe solutions are called for. 

 

First, you need to look at a few lifestyle changes.  How’s your diet?  Are you getting enough fruits and vegetables, lean protein, adequate fiber and drinking enough water?  A diet high in calories, saturated fat, and sugar can jeopardize your body’s ability to process the food you eat. Are you under a lot of stress?  Getting enough exercise?  Getting older than you’d care to admit?  What about food sensitivities?  All of these can affect your body’s natural ability to digest and process the foods you eat.  

 

A little behavior modification – push away from the table before eating too much, better diet, a walk around the block in the evening,  an effort to relax and find a moment now and then to “stop and smell the roses” can go a long way to alleviating these problems. 

 

But there is also another safe, healthy, natural way to give your “friendly” Microflora a boost:  probiotics.  It’s a big word for some very small but very powerful living things:  active, energetic, friendly bacteria that can supplement your own Microflora population and bring the unfriendly bacteria back into balance and under control.  Probiotics can occur naturally in some of the foods we eat, can be added to food products, or delivered in dietary supplements.  

 

“Probiotics” is becoming something of a “healthy” buzzword these days on Madison Avenue; some packaged foods, especially yogurts, have active bacteria cultures that the manufacturers claim can support your system’s balance.  Those products are often delicious, but there are questions: can they give you noticeable relief from intestinal distress?

 

For a probiotic to be effective, first, it’s a question of numbers.  Experts say that a probiotic supplement must be able to deliver billions and billions of active friendly bacteria to the GI tract every day to provide a functional difference to your digestive health.  Some of those yogurt products don’t contain enough probiotic bacteria to have much of an effect – and some are  expensive, have relatively high fat high sugar content and substantial calories when compared to probiotic dietary supplements. To get the billions of friendly bacteria you may need, how many cartons of yogurt can you afford to consume in one day, anyway?

 

Second, it’s a question of efficacy. Those billions of active, friendly bacteria have to arrive, in your gastrointestinal tract, alive, strong and healthy.  In order to get there, the probiotics you take must be strong enough to survive the intense digestive juices in your stomach and intestines, and that’s a pretty tall order.   Most of the probiotic products available today claim that they contain the active bacteria – but do they don’t know if those organisms will survive the digestive process and actually arrive at their destination? 

 

Finally, it’s a question of function. Once the probiotics arrive in the gastrointestinal tract, they must be able to quickly and prolifically multiply and colonize your intestines, and then to adhere to the intestinal walls to create an environment that is not hospitable to the unfriendly bacteria. This short-circuits the vicious cycle that began when partially digested food presented itself in the GI tract, by limiting the overgrowth of unfriendly bacteria.  When the unfriendly population of bacteria is reduced, the production of gas and toxins is lessened, and the awful symptoms gas and  toxins create are reduced or alleviated, as well.

 

There are hundreds of strains of probiotics on the market today, many are unproven with questionable effectiveness. One company, InnerHealth, has created a simple capsule that is a remarkably effective probiotic supplement that has been clinically tested so you can be sure it will work.

 

InnerHealth’s Intestinal Relief supplement contains a particularly prolific and energetic strain of probiotics called Probacil; each and every Intestinal Relief capsule contains at least fifteen billion of them.  Most important, InnerHealth’s special strain of probiotics Probacil have been proven to be strong enough to survive their journey through the stomach and the ravages of your digestive juices to arrive in your intestines intact.  Once there, Probacil colonizes your GI tract quickly, promoting relief from flatulence, bloating, cramping, and occasional constipation and urgency.  By supporting the healthy function of your gastrointestinal tract, InnerHealth Intestinal Relief can also help restore your overall sense of vitality and wellbeing – in short, you’ll feel great! 

 

As a physician, I need to be sure that a product will do what it claims to do before I can recommend it.  InnerHealth guarantees the effectiveness of their Intestinal Relief supplement with Probacil – and they do it with confidence, because they’ve covered all the bases to ensure that their product is outstanding.  It has been rigorously clinically tested in humans; the results of all those tests give me the medical assurance I need  that it works, which is something I cannot say for many other probiotics and yogurts.  The scientific research, thoroughness and quality behind InnerHealth products make it easy for me to recommend it to you. 

 

InnerHealth Intestinal Relief is manufactured in a GMP Certified manufacturing plant. This is my assurance of processing quality, safety and ingredient integrity.  This is also your assurance that InnerHealth Intestinal Relief is safe for you to use to supplement your diet.   And every shipment of Intestinal Relief is temperature-controlled, start to finish; the refrigerated packet it arrives in assures that it hasn’t been subjected to temperature fluctuations that might affect its quality.  

One of my favorite aspects of using Inner Health Intestinal Relief probiotic is that it safe and effective and has no significant adverse effects.  I don’t have to provide you a long list of fast talking potential adverse reactions that may sound worse than your condition.  The only minor effect that some of my patients experience when taking probiotics is a temporary increase in gas that disappears a few days. 

 

To sum it up, InnerHealth knows that Intestinal Relief with Probacil is a safe and effective probiotic supplement, and has been demonstrated it in human clinical trials.  That’s important to me as a medical doctor– and it speaks volumes about what this product can do for you… 

 

You can end the embarrassment, end the discomfort, feel great and more energetic; a few lifestyle modifications and InnerHealth Intestinal Relief can make it happen. 

Be Well.