Do we need Probiotics to heal our gut?

[onebigpill]

There are so many probiotic choices to improve gut health. I purchased one talked about here, but I seem extra sensitive.

What about sauerkraut brine (just the liquid)? Refrigerated kind.

Thanks,
Onebigpill

[tex]

No, we definitely do not need probiotics. Newly diagnosed MC patients are almost always searching for ways to heal their gut faster. There are no shortcuts, and there are no supplements (other than vitamin D and magnesium) that will speed up the healing process. Rather than to heal the gut faster, most such supplements either provide no benefits or cause us to react, thereby hindering our recovery process. The official gastroenterology guidelines recommend against the use of probiotics when trying to recover from MC, and our experiences among the members of this discussion forum indicate that precious few individuals actually benefit (or at least think they benefit) from probiotics. For most of us, they make no difference at all (except for the level of our bank account), and for a few of us (more than those who say they benefit from probiotics) the use of a probiotic triggers a reaction that may put us back to square one.

There's a reason why IBDs cause the intestines to heal so slowly. Recent research shows that it's because long-term inflammation causes damage to intestinal stem cells that result in epigenetic changes to certain gene sequences which drastically compromises their ability to recover from damage. I've written an article to discuss this research in detail, and it will hopefully appear in a future newsletter published by the Microscopic Colitis Foundation. In the meantime, here's a direct link to the original research article discussing this discovery.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii

But the bottom line is, you can try those probiotics if you want, but if they actually benefit you, you are a very atypical MC patient, because they wouldn't help most of us.

Tex