Natasha Trenev, who is known as The Mother of Probiotics, joins Mark Alyn to talk about, you guessed it–Probiotics! Probiotics means for life, where Antibiotics means against life. Over 100 trillion Probiotic microbes are in our gut and they control your health. Live Yogurt has probiotics, these do not include the sugary yogurts you find in the local grocery store. The problem with these sugary yogurts is that they feed the bad bacteria in your gut.

Why should you take a Probiotic? Natasha explains how the environment has changed over the last 40 year. These changes have introduced multiple new microbes that have become resistant in our communities. These include MRSA or Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) a bacterium responsible for several difficult to treat infections in humans. It is also called oxacillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (ORSA). MRSA is any strain of Staphylococcus aureus that has developed, through the process of natural selection, resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics, which includes the penicillins (methicillin, dicloxacillin, nafcillin, oxacillin, etc.) and the cephalosporins. These strains are unable to resist these antibiotics and are classified as methicillin-sensitive; Staphylococcus aureus, or MSSA. The evolution of such resistant bacteria does not cause the organism to be more intrinsically virulent than strains of S. aureus that have no antibiotic resistance, but resistance does make MRSA infection more difficult to treat with standard types of antibiotics and thus more dangerous.

Natasha talks about the benefits of Kombucha. Kombucha is a tea-based, fermented drink beverage that is often taken for its health benefits or medicinal purposes. Kombucha is a living organism drink made by fermenting tea and with the Kombucha culture. The result can taste like something between sparkling apple cider and champagne, depending on what flavor tea you use. The first recorded use of kombucha comes from China in 221 BC during the Tsin Dynasty. It was known as “The Tea of Immortality”. One of the benefits of Kombucha is that it helps the body absorb vitamins and minerals.