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Know the friendly bacteria

Dr M Karim Khan
Mostly we talk about pathogenic bacteria and rarely about friendly bacteria.
Today 1 will talk about friendly bacteria of intestine. Bifido bacteria are quickly gaining a reputation around the world as a bacteria that is beneficial to health. In fact, many refer to bifido bacteria as friendly bacteria.
We all like yogurt but many of us do not know how yogurt is produced from milk. Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus are two main bacteria responsible for converting milk into yogurt. So when we eat yogurt we eat numerous bacteria as well, but
these bacteria are good for health.
Bifido bacteria are found highest in quantities in the intestine of breast fed newborns. As the baby grows, its diet changes, the number of bifido bacteria declines and the number of other pathogenic bacteria increases and the baby develops diarrhoeas and other related diseases.
In studies carried out in Japan, it was shown that adding bifido bacteria in weaning food decreases diarrhoea episodes. Various strains of bifido bacteria are able to synthesise vitamins.
How these bacteria helps? Precise mechanism are not yet known but they help us in the following ways:
1. They produce some antibiotics in the intestine, which prevent the growth of other pathogenic bacteria.
2. These bacteria produces different organic acids like lactic acids, acetic acids in the intestine which directly inhibit the growth of many non friendly bacteria.
3. Because of these organic acid production the pH of the gut decreases, which on the other hand inhibits growth of many bacteria.
4. These friendly bacteria competes with other bacteria for nutrients and occupies the sites, making them unavailable to other micro organism.
5. Their presence in the intestine prevents proliferation of cancer cells.
Research indicates that bifido bacteria inhibit growth of common pathogenic and toxin producing bacteria including E. coll and salmonella. It was also recently reveled that viruses settle and replicate more readily in colon deficient in bifido bacteria.
Breast milk is a very good source of bifidobacteria and yogurt is a good source of friendly lactobacillus. Now it is advised that weaning food and other supplementary food should be fortified with bifidobacteria to increase the friendly bacteria in the intestine.
The wnter is an Associate Professor of department of paediatrics at Community Based medical College (CBMC), Mymensingh E-mail. mmukkhan@gmail.com