Probiotic supplements offer great health benefits for all ages but a recent study has some very exciting news for one specific age group: seniors.
The Doctors Health Press is reporting a new British study has concluded that probiotic shakes can significantly boost seniors’ immunity, possibly reducing the rate of early mortality among seniors.
As Doctors Health Press e-bulletin notes, as a person ages, their immune system has a greater role to play in safeguarding their health but, like everything else, the immune system may be slowed down and made less effective by the process of normal aging. Now, researchers in the U.K. are saying that having a probiotic shake for breakfast may effectively offset this drop in immunity. The report says that probiotics help in ousting disease-causing bacteria from the body. These “bad” bacteria are being blamed for all kinds of health problems but one thing that’s not usually addressed is whether probiotics could help offset what researchers call “immunosenescence,” or the slow but steady deterioration of the immune system that’s naturally triggered with age and is a major contributing factor in early mortality among seniors. Researchers from the University of Reading recruited 30 healthy senior volunteers. The volunteers were given a probiotic drink containing different kinds of beneficial bacteria or skimmed milk as a supplement for four weeks.