Food: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) by Krebs John

Author:Krebs, John [Krebs, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2013-08-07T16:00:00+00:00

Good and bad bacteria

By no means all bacteria are harmful to humans. In fact, the average human being probably contains about ten times as many bacterial cells as human cells (a hundred trillion versus ten trillion: because bacterial cells are much smaller than human cells these ten trillion weigh about 1 kilogram). Most of these bacteria live in our digestive tract and some have positive effects. It has been estimated that roughly 10 per cent of our energy intake is a result of bacteria helping us to digest parts of food that we would otherwise be unable to utilize. For instance, mothers’ milk contains carbohydrates called glycan understanding of

Chapter 1). It is claimed in advertisements that these probiotics increase the populations of ‘good bacteria’ in the digestive tract. There is no evidence that probiotics are of benefit to healthy individuals, but some randomized control trials have shown that they may help to alleviate some kinds of infant diarrhoea. For other bowel diseases the evidence is equivocal.

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