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Related: 5 Surprising Foods that Contain Powerful Prebiotics

From neck and face creams to waters, cold brew coffee, almond butter and supplements, probiotics are being added to everything. Plus, there are also natural probiotic food sources such as yogurt, kefir, and sourdough bread. Do these probiotics help with weight loss? Three things to know about probiotics in the episode of Bariatric Surgery Success.

Hi, I’m registered dietitian nutritionist Dr. Susan Mitchell. You’re listening to the Bariatric Surgery Success podcast episode number 71. Most of my career I’ve worked in some type of media, particularly radio where I did morning drive nutrition spots for over 18 years. That’s what lead me to start podcasting and ultimately to you. I created Bariatric Surgery Success to provide you with life-changing information based on science along with simple strategies and tools to help you be successful in your transformation and your entire journey. So happy you’ve connected with me. You’re in the right place and I’m glad you’re listening.

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Probiotics are bacteria that offer a health benefit to your body. Bacteria can be a good thing as probiotics may help prevent or treat certain illnesses. It’s no wonder probiotics are often nicknamed “the good bacteria”! Why does this matter to you? Your gastrointestinal tract or GI tract contains many species of bacteria that make up what’s known as the intestinal flora. It’s a balancing act going on in the GI tract between good and bad bacteria. Think of it this way. Medications, diseases, even some environmental issues can alter this balance. This flora can “get out of whack” when you take antibiotics or other medications, and can be effected by various illness. Diarrhea is one of the most common symptoms that reveals something abnormal is going on. This is where probiotics may be helpful. Certain probiotic strains may help digestive health, positively influence cardiovascular risk factors, reduce inflammation, support your immune system, and even help fight depression and anxiety.

Probiotics are live bacteria that occur naturally in foods that you can include in your daily diet such as yogurt, kefir, kombucha, tempeh, kimchi, sauerkraut, sourdough bread, even pickles and traditional buttermilk. These different foods provide a variety of probiotic bacteria strains in modest amounts and are beneficial to the intestinal flora.

Probiotics can also be purchased as supplements and when taken in larger amounts or doses are considered a therapeutic treatment more like a medication. But not all probiotics survive and thrive. What does that mean? For you to derive health benefits, these good bacteria must survive the manufacturing process and storage along with the trip through the gastrointestinal tract once you take them. Since they are live bacteria, all of these factors matter, along with prescribing the right ones for the health benefit needed.

Don’t miss this. It’s the bottom line for therapeutic treatment which we’ll tie to weight loss in just a moment. When using probiotics for disease-specific prevention and treatment which means a therapeutic use, it calls for the precise probiotic species that has been shown to confer health benefits for that specific medical condition. Probiotics must be identified by the genus, species and strain. For instance, with Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, the genus is Lactobacillus, the species is rhamnosus, and the strain is GG. If the treatment calls for this probiotic and another is used, the benefit is missed.

Plus the supplement must provides an amount that works. An adult probiotic should be alive, typically provide at least 1 billion colony forming units daily (also called CFUs) and given in the correct dose and frequency. This is why consulting a professional is so important when it comes to using them for treatment.

What about probiotics in weight loss before and after bariatric surgery? Research studies indicate that someone who is a moderate weight has different bacteria in the gastrointestinal or GI tract than someone who is overweight or obese. Also interesting is that there tends to be less diverse bacteria in someone who is obese. Less diverse GI bacteria appears to be tied to more weight gain than in folks who have more diverse GI bacteria. The issue is figuring out the methods by which probiotics affect this GI bacteria, body weight and belly fat. This is currently not well understood. Probiotics may help the battle with weight loss in several ways including the release of appetite-regulating hormones like glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and peptide YY (PYY) which may then help burn calories and fat. There is also the thought that probiotics increase levels of fat-regulating proteins that could lead to reduced fat storage. Obesity has also been linked to inflammation in the body. If the health of the GI track is improved with probiotics, overall inflammation may be reduced which may then help with weight loss. Several strains of probiotics in both the Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium family have been shown to potentially reduce weight and belly fat with more research needed to determine use, dosage, etc. However, when participants in studies stopped taking the probiotic, they gained back all of the belly fat. So will this mean that probiotics are needed daily and ongoing? This is why we need research studies first.

One important word of caution. Probiotics aren’t for everyone. For example, if your immune system is impaired due to disease or treatment such as cancer chemotherapy, taking probiotics is not a good idea and may make your situation worse. If you’re pregnant or elderly you want to talk to your health care provider before taking probiotics.

Until we have more specific research on weight loss and probiotics, remember probiotics in foods such as yogurt, kefir, sourdough bread, tempeh and sauerkraut may improve your digestive health and risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease, reduce inflammation, and even help fight depression and anxiety.

Take care of yourself and be good to you…you’re worth it.