A few days ago, kangaroo Ma Ma sent an article on "milk drinks", and the relatives who missed it can click here to review: these kinds of children's favorite "kefir" is actually not milk at all! Teaches you to identify milk/milk drinks at a glance. Many parents left a message, "Lactic acid bacteria drink" and "Milk drink the same?" Is it because it contains lactic acid bacteria and probiotics that are healthier? ”
Indeed, in recent years, with the improvement of everyone's health awareness, there are more and more lactic acid bacteria drinks on the market that advertise health benefits, and they are often claimed to have promoted digestion, improved immunity, laxative, beauty, etc. to cause consumers to buy, but are these drinks really beneficial to health?
Several common lactic acid bacteria drinks
When it comes to clear milk acid bacteria drinks, we can't get around one topic - intestinal flora.
There is a large number of micro-ecosystems in the human intestine, that is, the intestinal flora. Studies have found that the influence of intestinal flora on health is staggering, from normal nutritional metabolism and immune function to diseases such as cancer, diabetes, obesity, allergies, etc., which are inextricably linked to the intestinal flora.
There are about hundreds of bacteria in a healthy person's gut, totaling about 100 megabytes (the density of bacteria is higher than in the subway during rush hour!). ）。
But these bacteria are not all good for health, they are divided into three camps: good bacteria, harmful bacteria and neutral bacteria (conditional pathogenic bacteria) three kinds. Bacteria that play a beneficial role in the human body by improving the balance of the host's intestinal flora are collectively referred to as "probiotics."
The three types of bacteria, beneficial bacteria, harmful bacteria and neutral bacteria will restrict each other, so their number and type will not change significantly, and they will usually be maintained in a relatively stable state to maintain human health; when the number and proportion of intestinal flora are disordered, diseases often follow.
So can we artificially supplement the good bacteria to make the body healthier? In principle, yes.
With our research and understanding of probiotics more and more in-depth, a variety of probiotic foods, health care products have also come into being, lactic acid bacteria beverages belong to this list.
At present, we found dozens of probiotics, but not all of them can be added to food, after long-term screening and verification, it has been confirmed that there are only three types of probiotics with health effects:
However, parents should note that these probiotics that can be added to food are not all suitable for the intestines of infants and young children: according to the relevant announcements of the Ministry of Health, as of 2016, there are only 7 species of probiotics that can be used for infant food in China, including 9 strains.
A list of cultures that can be used in infant food
"Nourish the stomach", "promote digestion", "let the body enjoy a healthy life easily"... No matter how well it is blown, take off the advertisement to see the essence, what exactly is a lactic acid bacteria drink?
Now most of the probiotic drinks are added with lactic acid bacteria, so it is also called "lactic acid bacteria drink". According to the regulations:
Lactic acid bacteria beverage refers to milk or dairy products as raw materials, through the fermentation of lactic acid bacteria to produce a lotion with water, as well as sugar and /or) sweeteners, acidulants, fruit juices, tea, coffee, plant extracts and other one or more of the mixed beverages. According to whether it has been sterilized or not, it is divided into sterile (non-live) type and unalcirculated (live) type.
First of all, the live bacteria type, this type of lactic acid bacteria beverage is characterized by the need for refrigeration preservation, and the shelf life is relatively short. Enterprises often use "live bacteria" as the main selling point when advertising, claiming that the product has a variety of benefits, such as improving digestion and absorption, regulating intestinal flora, regulating immunity and other effects. For example, the following x full, x lactic acid bacteria beverage advertisement:
But in fact, to reap the benefits of probiotics, three conditions need to be met:
Specific strains: Must be strains that have a clear positive health impact. Take in sufficient amounts continuously: Because the number of intestinal flora is large, if the number of probiotics taken is too small, it will not play a significant role. Ensure that enough live bacteria reach the intestines: for example, after a meal, that is, when the concentration of stomach acid is at its lowest.
First of all, the transportation and storage of live lactic acid bacteria beverages need to be refrigerated, otherwise the number of live bacteria will be greatly reduced and the taste will become worse. If the lactic acid bacteria drink sold in the supermarket or store is kept at room temperature, it is not worth buying! After buying it yourself, you should also remember to put it in the refrigerator and keep it refrigerated.
Secondly, no matter whether there are n hundred million live bacteria in lactic acid bacteria beverages, after the test of gastric juice, it is rare to be able to enter the intestine alive to play a role, and the health effects of these lucky ones may be far less powerful than advertised.
In fact, these probiotic drinks are more of an auxiliary effect, such as beneficial for antibiotic gastroenteritis, but can not play a direct therapeutic role, such as constipation, allergies, relying on drinking lactic acid bacteria drinks is difficult to play a significant improvement effect.
As mentioned earlier, lactic acid bacteria beverages are divided into sterile (non-live) and unsused (live) types according to whether they are sterilized or not.
We can distinguish according to the shelf life and preservation method on the outer packaging, the shelf life is long, no need to refrigerate is a sterilization type, that is, a beverage that does not contain live bacteria.
Although some studies have also found that even dead bacteria and their metabolites have similar physiological functions to live bacteria, at least from the current evidence, it is still necessary to try to ensure that a sufficient amount of live bacteria reach the large intestine health benefits, so if you want to buy lactic acid bacteria drinks, it is best to choose the unhilmed type.
After talking about probiotics, let's take a look at the other nutrients in lactic acid bacteria drinks.
Common lactic acid bacteria drinks contain about 15 grams of sugar in 100ml, which is much higher than cola sugar (10g/100ml).
Nutritional composition list of "x-leduo" lactic acid bacteria drinks
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that adults should not consume more than 5% of their total energy (about 25 g of sugar/day). And taking the x Lotto above as an example, the two vials under the belly are appropriately overdose! Therefore, from the perspective of sugar, the health risks of drinking lactic acid bacteria drinks are not small.
In addition, lactic acid bacteria drinks are also relatively low in protein and calcium content, usually only one-third of milk and yogurt.
Compared with lactic acid bacteria drinks, yogurt also has probiotics, although the number is usually a little less than lactic acid bacteria drinks, but because the content of protein and calcium is higher, the overall nutritional value is higher than that of lactic acid bacteria drinks.
Kangaroo Ma Ma has something to say:
Because of the sweet and sour taste, lactic acid bacteria drinks are particularly popular with women and children, but in summary, although it contains a certain number of probiotics, after the twists and turns of stimulating the intestine, there are few live bacteria that can continue to remain active and play an active role; at the same time, we can not ignore that lactic acid bacteria drinks are high in sugar, low nutritional value, long-term drinking, in fact, artificially increase the risk of obesity and other diseases.
Therefore, if it is purely for the sake of drinking, it is okay to drink occasionally, but it is recommended that you do not superstitiously believe in the "health care functions" on the advertisement. If you take lactic acid bacteria drink as the standard for your own and your baby's daily drinks, you will put the cart before the horse.