Mmmm, a glass of chilled kefir just may relieve your microscopic colitis symptoms!

Give this probiotic a try; it will help re-balance the bacteria in your gut.

An imbalance may be causing or contributing to your microscopic colitis.

“Kefir or probiotic supplements can help to control the diarrhea in microscopic colitis,” says Lawrence Hoberman, MD, a board certified gastroenterologist and creator of EndoMune probiotic products.

“It is thought that there is a change in the healthy intestinal bacteria or microbiome which allows overgrowth of harmful bacteria, viruses or parasites.

“Taking kefir or probiotics that contain the healthy intestinal bacteria will rebalance the intestinal bacteria.

“This will modify the intestinal immune system and stop inflammation.”

Kefir Comes in Different Flavors

When I had a flare of microscopic colitis, kefir seemed to have a beneficial effect.

I won’t go the route of prescription or over-the-counter drugs because these only address the symptoms, if they even work at all.

In fact, Imodium may delay the inevitable by causing constipation.

Kefir works by actually treating microscopic colitis.

Essentially, kefir is yogurt in drinkable form, but it also contains live culture bacteria, or, the “good” bacteria, the beneficial bacteria that you need for optimum intestinal health.

Kefir is a probiotic; probiotics are good or “friendly” bacteria that are an integral part of a healthy balance of microorganisms in human intestines.

It’s believed by doctors that microscopic colitis can be caused by an overgrowth of bad bacteria; or, to put it another way, an imbalance in the ratio of good to bad bacteria in the intestinal tract.

There may be a genetic component to this, but that has not been proven.

Here are a few theories:

1) The body for some unknown reason “attacks” the good bacteria that grow in the colon, thereby offsetting the balance.

2) This can be triggered by NSAID’s and aspirin, antibiotics and eating certain foods that favor the growth of bad bacteria.

Because kefir is a probiotic, ingesting this drink helps restore a more optimal balance of good bacteria and bad in the gastrointestinal tract.

Years ago when my microscopic flare was in full force, I had gone off kefir several times, and every time, the symptoms returned.

My symptoms were a lot of diarrhea and large amounts of undigested food in my stools.

If you have microscopic colitis, go straight to the kefir, because it’s drinkable, which makes it more convenient than yogurt (which also comes in probiotic form).

You may also want to take probiotics in supplement form such as EndoMune if you don’t care for the taste of kefir or for times that you’ve run out of it.

With 40+ years’ experience, Dr. Hoberman is an expert in probiotics. He has extensive first-hand experience treating a variety of digestive health issues and has seen the dramatic results probiotics have had on his patients.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.  
 
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Top image: Shutterstock/marina kuchenbecker