Probiotics!
Jonathan Eisen describes how bacteria in and on our bodies play a very important function in our lives. Basically, we wouldn’t be who we are without them. We have been advocating for the use of probiotics in a number health concerns including gastrointestinal illnesses like diarrhea and other concerns like asthma, autoimmune diseases, eczema, and allergies. The Gastro world is catching up to the idea that bacteria are essential for our health, to sustain it, to optimize it, and to prevent disease.
The Department of Medicine at Washington University published Perspectives in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology – an Evidence Based Guide to understanding probiotics. The author Matthew Ciorba reviews a thorough analysis of good quality studies that have been done on probiotics to date (2012). His aim is to elucidate, as is the case with antibiotic prescribing, which strain of probiotic and dosage are evidenced to help the clinical conditions for which they have been studied.
http://www.cghjournal.org/article/S1542-3565(12)00369-2/abstract
