Get A Holiday Body: Expert details perfect 'healthy' breakfast

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Dr Pam Mason told Express.co.uk that taking a simple supplement or making a small switch in diet to include more probiotics could improve Britons’ overall health. Dr Mason is a Nutritionist and Researcher from the Health & Food Supplements Information Service.

Probiotics are found in certain foods and are defined as important bacteria and yeasts that are beneficial to health. A recent review co-authored by Dr Mason found that research shows that probiotics can be beneficial to overall health including gut health, immune health, cardio health and brain health.

Foods such as yoghurts, kefir and some kombucha drinks contain probiotics and often include details of their probiotic contents on the label.

Dr Mason said: “Probiotics have traditionally been associated with gut health and the treatment or prevention of gut conditions like traveller’s diarrhoea and antibiotic associated diarrhoea.

“However, increasing knowledge around gut health has shown links between the gut and other organs in the body, for example, the brain, the adipose tissue, the heart and the immune system.”

She added: “As our paper highlights, probiotics, in particular, have been linked with brain health, gut health and immune health.

“The most solid evidence to date lies with gut health and immune health, but evidence of benefit in these other areas is emerging quite rapidly.”

Many Britons, however, are unaware that probiotics can improve their health. Up to one fifth of Britons don’t take probiotic supplements as they don’t know why they should and a further fifth are unaware that probiotic supplements exist.

Dr Mason said: “Diversity is important in the diets of most healthy people. I would recommend a mixture of probiotic foods and drinks and a supplement according to the individual’s lifestyle. It may not always be practical to eat, say, yogurt or drink kefir daily and a supplement containing probiotic organisms can be a helpful top-up.”

She added: “In summary, it is useful to increase dietary fibre intake and consume a daily portion of plain yogurt containing probiotic organisms or a dietary supplement containing probiotic organisms.”

Dietary fibre has been classed as a prebiotic – a substrate which can help probiotic organisms grow in our gut. It can be found in fruits, vegetables, wholegrains, beans and other foods.

Research shows that, on average, Brits only consume around 60 per cent of their daily recommended dietary fibre, according to Dr Mason.

Probiotics have even been linked to stronger immune responses and could be used to prevent respiratory infections, according to the research. Dr Mason said that it was too early to tell if probiotics could help the body fight off a Covid 19 infection, however, but that it was something that should be looked into.

She said: “Given that COVID-19 affects both the lungs and the gut, it makes sense to look at probiotic supplementation. However, research is in its infancy and it is difficult to say whether probiotic supplementation can prevent COVID-19.”

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Dr Mason said that stronger messaging and labelling could help Brits learn more about probiotics but that food labelling laws were preventing clearer packaging.

She said: “More understanding by the people who communicate with the public would be helpful. This includes health professionals. Clearer labelling would be helpful, but according to food law, companies are restricted in what they can currently communicate, for example, on packages, in a way that makes the importance of gut health easy to understand.”

She added: “Gut health is important in so many ways that people don’t understand. Whilst the science is still emerging, maintaining, and improving gut health and overall health through a mixture of probiotics and prebiotics is important.

“A daily probiotic containing yogurt and/or a probiotic supplement containing a variety of probiotic organisms as well as increasing dietary fibre is an important way to contribute to overall health.”

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