What’s The Difference Between Probiotics and Digestive Enzymes?
The human body is a complex and difficult thing to understand. In order for our health and wellbeing to be top notch, we need to pay attention to many different things. If your gut isn’t working well, you’re not happy, and everything about your body feels wrong. For this reason, it’s vital that you understand all about the best digestive enzymes for your body, and probiotics too. Both of these will help you feel fantastic on the inside, and look your best on the outside as a result!
Digestive enzymes and probiotics are two very different things, and in order to ensure you’re getting the best of both worlds, you need to understand what each one really is.
What Are Probiotics?
According to Staci Gulbin RD, probiotics are live bacteria which live in your gut and help to maintain a healthy environment. The word ‘bacteria’ may sound worrying, but this type of bacteria is beneficial, i.e. ‘good bacteria’. You need a balance of good and bad, in order to keep your gut working to the best of its ability. When this doesn’t happen, you get symptoms such as bloating, gas, and constipation. None of that is fun!
In addition to ensuring a healthy balance of bacteria, probiotics also affect the nerve signals in your digestive system, ensuring that food moves through your intestines in a timely and proper manner. This all helps to ensure good gut health, and avoid any issues from occurring. Probiotics are also known to boost your immune system, and have a range of other health-related benefits.
What Are Digestive Enzymes?
Subtly different to probiotics, digestive enzymes help to break down food into smaller pieces, so it can be absorbed and digested properly. Research suggests that both probiotics and digestive enzymes are vital for good health, but the main difference is that probiotics are alive, where as digestive enzymes aren’t.
They work together to ensure a healthy gut, and proper digestion of your food, as well as absorption of nutrients. One doesn’t work without the other.
How to Get The Best Digestive Enzymes and Probiotics
Probiotics can be obtained either via a supplement you take, or from your diet. There are many foods which are rich in probiotic content, such as yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, many fermented foods, and traditional buttermilk, to name just a few. Supplements are either in the form of a yogurt drink, a tablet, or a capsule, which you take usually daily, according to the instructions on the product itself.
On the other hand, the best digestive enzymes are totally natural. Your body’s cells create digestive enzymes naturally, and these are then secreted into the areas where they are needed, e.g. the gut. It is possible to take supplements, but these are very rarely needed, and often don’t work, because they are proteins, and any protein which enters the body is digested in the natural way.
For that reason, the best advice is to eat a healthy, balanced diet, to maintain a high level of overall health, take probiotics if necessary and drink plenty of water. All of this will ensure that your probiotic levels and digestive enzyme levels are optimum for good stomach health.
