The human body is made of about 37.2 trillion cells according to science but it's hard to be perfectly certain about these things simply because not only are there so many of them that it's close to impossible to count them since they are also incredibly small, but many of your cells die each day and newer ones can appear, but regardless today I am not talking about cells but about bacteria.
The reason I am mentioning cells is because although there are so many of them, according to science it's possible that the bacteria inside of our bodies actually outnumber our cells. Not so long ago a scientific study appeared which said that our bacteria outnumber our cells 10 to 1, meaning that for each cell there are about 10 bacteria. Well, another scientific study appeared a bit later after that one and this one said that it's not so and that the bacteria in your body are actually closer to your cells in number. Many people online are discussing this but in the end what is certain is that there are trillions of bacteria in our bodies, possibly outnumbering our cells. I am of the opinion that bacteria do outnumber cells but this depends on certain factors. If a person consumes probiotics either through a supplement or through food with probiotics in it regularly, then that person will have a lot of bacteria colonizing in the body but if a person rarely consumes foods with bacteria in them then the number might be much lower so it really depends. Also, it is much more important what bacteria there are in your body and less important how many you have. Probiotics are the good, healthy bacteria that live in your body and these are the important ones because they can improve your digestion and keep the bad bacteria from causing you problems. It can be more complicated but I will simplify it, there are good and bad bacteria out there and in your body, it is in your best interest to colonize your body with good ones instead of bad. By doing this the good can inhibit the bad and drive them into a corner and reduce the risk of bacterial infections such as colds and flus but also vaginal or urinary infections, digestive infections, etc. These bacteria also synthesize vitamins and digest foods, helping you digest fiber and lactose which normally are difficult to digest.
Much research has been put towards probiotics and their potential for preventing as well as helping to treat infections and even diseases. Based on some of the proof that we have right now, many scientists believe that we could use probiotics to avoid many health problems and to also slowly fix a problem that has been continuously rising which is the abuse of antibiotics. People all over the world use antibiotics, we've all developed an infection caused by some bacteria at some point in our lives, as children or as adults and you probably used an antibiotic to help treat it. Antibiotics are made to identify and eliminate bad bacteria in the body and to suppress them and to treat the infection together with your body but despite being used by, well probably by everyone, not everyone knows of the side-effects of antibiotics. There are two things that you should think of before using an antibiotic, the bacterial resistance it can cause in your body and the probiotics that it will kill or the disruption it will create in your microbiome. Also many don't know about the microbiome, it's the community of microorganisms in your body, a community that probiotic bacteria are a part of. Each time you use an antibiotic, many probiotics die. Each time you use an antibiotic, some bacteria survive and they develop a resistance to the antibiotic, growing stronger, this also leads to stronger or harder to treat infections. The more you use an antibiotic, the more you expose those strong bacteria to it and the stronger they can become, also the more damage the antibiotic does to probiotics. The purpose of using probiotics is not just to reduce the risk of infection but also to reduce the need of using an antibiotic.
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