There are a lot of claims about the benefits of probiotics and live cultures found in yogurts. Find out if yogurt can help your digestion stay on track.
Yogurt may help your digestive tract remain healthy however, not all yogurts have equal benefits. The number of choices in the dairy section of your supermarket can be overwhelming — low fat, non-fat, light, fiber-added, Greek, Swiss, whipped, drinkable, organic, frozen yogurt — making it hard to recognize which have health and digestive tract benefits and which don’t.
Yogurt is a cultured or fermented milk product that is soured and thickened by adding specific lactic acid-producing cultures to milk. The basic cultures or probiotics used to make yogurt are Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. Additional probiotics are often added. Common ones are Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus casei, and Bifidus, all of which may help to maintain the balance of bacteria needed to boost the immune system and promote a healthy digestive tract.
Evidence is mounting that bacteria are critical to maintaining normal gastrointestinal and immune system function. Sonya Angelone, MS, RDN, CLT, San Francisco-based nutritionist and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, said. 70 percent of a person’s immune system is in the gut; “Healthy bacteria, such as the probiotics found in healthy yogurt, are the gut’s first line of defense," she said.
The American Gastrointestinal Association recommends yogurt for digestive health and to ease constipation, diarrhea, and other intestinal problems. A study published in the February 2009 issue of the Journal of Digestive Diseases found that probiotics help improve lactose digestion, prevent constipation, and irregularity, and may have healing effects on the intestinal tract.
Perhaps skewing the results, studies on the digestive benefits of yogurt are funded mostly by yogurt companies. It’s clear, though, that one of the best and most available ways to regularly get probiotics is by eating yogurt. When high concentrations are needed, your doctor may give you a prescription for probiotic pills.
Live and Active Cultures in Yogurt
Probiotics are living microorganisms that help stop bad or undesirable bacteria from overgrowing in the gut. They may help fight diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, and colon diseases.
If you’re buying yogurt for its health benefits, no matter what its base ingredient, the key to making the right choice is being sure it contains live and active cultures. The label on the container will tell you what probiotics are in the yogurt. Some yogurts carry the National Yogurt Association’s (NYA) “Live and Active Culture” seal, but if that label is not on the container, look at the ingredient panel.
“Yogurt is a healthy addition to the diet because it contains calcium, protein, and active cultures,” said Lori Rosenthal, MS, RD, CDN, a registered dietitian in the department of surgery at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York. "But it’s not a major cure-all for GI disorders because it just doesn’t have enough cultures to fight serious problems.”
Yogurt Standards
The NYA has established standards for probiotics. For yogurt to be healthy, it must have at least 100 million cultures per gram at the time of manufacture. Frozen yogurt must contain 10 million cultures per gram. If these minimums are met, the Live and Active Cultures seal may be on the label.
read more on the different yogurt types here---
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