Think Probiotics Before Taking a Prescription Medication for IBS
Irritable bowel syndrome is a very common disease. Because our diets keep getting worse, IBS is showing up in more and more people. Middle aged adults are some of the most common sufferers of this disease.
The causes of IBS can be found in a diet that is filled with processed foods, too many sugars, dairy, and colon-plugging red meat. It is funny, then, that most of the remedies on the market don’t seek to address diet for IBS relief. Instead, it is very common to get some sort of pill, or “magic” drug to help you deal with IBS symptoms.
But a prescription medication is not the answer. If you suffer from irritable bowel syndrome, the best thing you can do is address the diet that is causing these symptoms in the first place. Learn about pH balance and colon health, and how what you are eating translates into how healthy your body is.
You also need to know about probiotics. In a recent clinical study*, probiotics were shown to be extremely effective in relieving the symptoms of IBS. That is because probiotics are naturally occurring microorganisms that live in your gut and help you break down food, absorb nutrients, and keep your digestive system, including your colon, clean and unplugged.
For those in the study, taking probiotics for as little as eight weeks yielded a significant decrease in pain and discomfort for IBS sufferers. The patients in the study did this without even changing their diets. If dietary changes had been implemented, it is possible that IBS symptoms would have cleared up even faster.
That is because your body relies on a healthy diet to keep itself balanced and healthy. If you eat to many cooked, refined foods, you can easily cause your body to become an environment in which healthy bacteria cannot live. To undo this, you should start eating more raw foods, stay away from dairy, sugar, caffeine, and other processed foods, and take a probiotic.
Irritable bowel syndrome is a disease in itself, but it is also a symptom of and unhealthy body. If you want to be free of IBS for good, you need to do more than take a magic pill. Pharmaceutical drugs often, but not always, cause more problems than they solve.
Natural remedies, like changing your diet and taking a probiotic are much healthier and address a wider variety of illnesses and symptoms. That is why opting for a probiotic and a cleaner diet is the better way to go.
*Hong KS, Kang HW, Im JP, Ji GE, Kim SG, Jung HC, Song IS, Kim JS, (2009) Effect of probiotics on symptoms in Korean adults with irritable bowel syndrome. Gut Liver. 2009 Jun 30:101-7. Epub 2009 Jun 30.
