Good Morning!
I hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend!
For the majority of my nutrition practice, I have coached clients to stop taking probiotics during antibiotic treatment and once finished with antibiotic treatment, take double the dose of probiotics for twice the amount of antibiotic treatment.
For example:
If you take a 5 day round of antibiotics, stop probiotics for 5 days – once you finish with the 5 day round, take 2x the dose of probiotics for 10 days and then resume to normal.
This has been my stance up to now because it has been a long held belief that antibiotics cancel everything else out, so why waste your money taking probiotics when they don’t do you any good anyway?
However, given the research I am sharing today – I’m changing my stance on a specific probiotic strain.
Saccharomyces Boulardii is a yeast based probiotic strain vs what we commonly hear about – bacteria based probiotic strains.
I’m sharing 5 different studies today. I will link throughout. Each one is a 1-2 minute read and proves the positive impact of Saccharomyces Boulardii on restoring the gut during and after antibiotic use.
The first article I am sharing discusses using Saccharomyces Boulardii to help prevent gut dysbiosis caused by antibiotic treatment. The authors concluded that the studies from clinical trials and meta-analyses showed that taking Saccharomyces Bouardii upon the start of antibiotic treatment – at least within 48 hours – “…can help to prevent or resolve the consequences of antibiotic-associated dysbiosis (such as diarrhea) and promote the resilience of the gut microbiota and a return to the pre-antibiotic state.”
As the authors suggest, there is a significant body of literature that supports the inclusion of Saccharomyces Bouardii around antibiotic use.
Previous research has demonstrated that Saccharomyces Boulardii can:
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Reduce antibiotic associated increases in bile acids that promote the growth of pathogenic bacteria (see this study here) – aka prevent antibiotic use from creating more “bad” bacterial susceptibility down the line // after treatment.
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Protect the gut mucosa (your gut lining – our immune systems first defense) and promote growth of beneficial bacteria (see here). How cool is that? Instead of finishing up antibiotics and having to completely rebuild the beneficial bacteria in our gut – taking Saccharomyces Bouardii can prevent such a significant loss in the first place.
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Increase the rate of microbiome recovery and return to pre-antibiotic bacterial states (see here and here). This means, less susceptibility to immune dysfunction, aka getting sick more easily after antibiotic use.
Net, net – based on this research, including Saccharomyces Boulardii alongside antibiotics + 2 weeks after antibiotic treatment seems to be a safe option to mitigate some of the antibiotic risks.
Does this mean take antibiotics willy nilly? No. Please don’t hear me say that. I do still encourage you to be mindful and intentional about taking antibiotics.
But, when you do have to take them – you now have a significant tool in your tool kit to accelerate recovery and healing.
Studies tend to use around 250-500mg twice daily (which is typically 1-2 capsules twice daily). I suggest starting with the lower dose if you are new to probiotic and/or Saccharomyces Boulardii use as it can create constipation, gas and bloating.
I’m sharing two of the brands I like below – saying it again, I do not get any kickbacks from you purchasing from these links – but I do suggest ordering direct from the links below or from Fullscript – I would NOT order these from Amazon, to ensure quality.
Keep these on hand so you have them if you need them.
It would also be okay to take a round of them outside of antibiotic use as a way to get more variety in your gut bacteria and yeast population. Because we all know… Variety is the spice life *wink*wink* and this is certainly true for our guts!
Happy Sunday!
As always, I’m here for questions!
Take good CARE of you this week!
xoxo
Alix