Back to School with Probiotics: Immune Support and Kids

Around the country, parents and their kids are gearing up for in-person learning once again. That means back to school shopping, but it also means potential digestive upset and close contact.

While shopping lists are sure to include new clothes, shoes, lunchboxes, backpacks, paper and pencils, perhaps they should include probiotics too.

Probiotics are living microorganisms and can be useful in strengthening your child’s digestive balance and supporting a healthy immune system. Adding them to your back to school shopping list is worth considering.

What Are Probiotics?

Probiotic supplements – which deliver good bacteria or yeast strains to our digestive systems – work to keep our gut microbiota in equilibrium. Our gut microbiota is made up of trillions of organisms including bacteria, viruses, fungi, yeast and protozoa. When things get out of balance from such things as antibiotics, poor diet or even stress, we can experience trouble in our digestive tracts.

What Do Probiotics Do For Kids?

Our gut microbiota changes as we age and grow. And there’s a lot of growing going on in children. As they move from infants to toddlers to school-aged and then teenagers, children undergo a number of physiological changes. Their diets also change along with their activities and sleep habits. All of these transitions are likely to impact their gut microbiota.

Research studies have shown supplemental probiotics are not only safe for children, but also beneficial. Specific probiotic strains are formulated to help kids stay healthy through these various stages of development.

Immune Booster For Kids

Many probiotics claim to support immunity. They do this by creating a favorable environment in the gut where approximately 70% of our immune system lives. But some probiotics, like Florastor, can actually stimulate the body’s production of Immunoglobulin A (IgA), the primary antibody in our digestive tracts that defend against infections.

Protect From Digestive Upsets

Back to school means back to stress which can cause digestive upsets such as occasional gas, bloating and diarrhea.  Probiotics can help maintain the digestive balance necessary to avoid these issues. Florastor is a unique probiotic that helps maintain digestive balance by flushing out bad bacteria so your good bacteria can flourish and do their job. Most probiotics simply add more beneficial bacteria to help restore balance leaving the bad bacteria in your gut.

Recover From Antibiotics

Antibiotics can wreak havoc on your little one’s digestive balance by destroying both good and bad bacteria indiscriminately. Probiotics can help you restore your child’s digestive balance after a regimen of antibiotics. However, the problem with most probiotics is that they are made up of good bacteria – and are therefore susceptible to the antibiotics. This means you have to wait until after the antibiotics have already run their course before you can get the benefits of a bacteria based probiotic.

Florastor is different. It’s not bacteria-based so it is naturally resistant to antibiotics. In fact, Florastor has been proven resistant to over 16 common oral antibiotics including Amoxicillin and Azithromycin. You can take Florastor with antibiotics to help maintain digestive balance. 

Nutrient Absorption

Probiotics can help facilitate the absorption of nutrients and increase digestive enzymes. In fact, Florastor has been shown to improve carbohydrate and sugar digestion as well help your body absorb water better.

Are All Probiotics The Same?

Not all probiotics are the same. Generally, it is important to choose a probiotic that contains the specific strain that has been proven to provide the benefits you are looking for whether that is digestive balance or immunity boosting benefits.

That’s because science has shown that you can’t expect to get the same benefits from a similar, but different strain, of probiotics. This is true even if the product claims to have all the same benefits as the original or “compare to” strain. Probiotic strains, whether they are bacteria-based or yeast-based, show distinctive strain-specific activity.

For example, the specific strain only found in the Florastor brand of probiotics, Saccharomyces boulardii lyo CNCM I-745, has been shown to actively stimulate immunity by increasing IgA antibody production. You can only be certain you will get this benefit from the specific strain in the Florastor brand and not another similar Saccharomyces boulardii probiotic.

Try FlorastorKids® For Happy Tummies & Immune Boosting Benefits

It’s important to look for probiotics that are safe and backed by scientific studies. The ingredient in FlorastorKids has been used safely for over 65 years and has been featured in over 650 publications.

FlorastorKids is a kid-friendly formulation to help children maintain the delicate balance of their healthy intestinal flora. It comes in a convenient and easy to mix powder sachet you can mix into beverages or food, like applesauce, for easy consumption.

The Bottom Line

Getting your kids ready to go back to school is all about preparing them for the best education they can get. How about preparing their digestive and immune systems for the coming school year, too?