Feeding the gut bugs

My career is less than glamorous when you consider that much of the knowledge from nutritional sciences comes from poop...yes, I said it.  While I always consider my dogs body condition when feeding, I also consider their "poop-condition".  I will specifically alter their diets based on what their poop is doing.

Why?

Well, our large intestines are loaded with bacteria. Some are good and some are not so good.  In my field, we call this environment the microbiota or microflora of the gut.  Keeping this micoflora "happy" and balanced is a key to maintaining digestive processes, immunity, and overall health.  Bet you never thought that all those bugs in your gut contribute to your immunity.  When the delicate balance gets shifted, the result is often an obvious disturbance in fecal consistency. 

There are a few ways to keep those gut bugs happy.  One is with probiotics.  These are actually live organisms, typically inclusive of  bifidobacteria. These are considered the good guys.  The idea is that these bacteria will be consumed and help repopulate the large intestine.  Great idea in concept except they have to survive some harsh environmental challenges such as extremely acidic juices in the stomach, not to mention the digestive enzymes in the small intestine.  That said, some indeed survive to the other side.

Another concept is to find food items that the good guys really like, providing a much more stable environment; therefore, allowing them to grow faster and outcompete the bad guys (such as clostridia). This is how prebiotics work.  The most well studied one for pets and humans is called inulin.  It is actually a long chain sugar in the family of carbohydrates called FOS (fructooligosaccharides).  Inulin is found in large concentrations in chicory root.  I have seen more and more petfoods include chicory root in their formulations.  This is also one of the active ingredients in the popular yogurt product, Activia. 

I don't frequently give my dogs probiotics unless they have been treated with antibiotics.  Antibiotics not only destroy and kill targeted infectious bacteria, they often wreck havoc on the gut microflora as well.  I reserve probiotic products for those instances.  The remainder of the time, my dogs do enjoy their daily Activia right along with me.