Studies have shown again and again that healthy people do indeed have disease causing organisms in their systems, even though they do not get ill. Experts indicate that with more and more strains of germs becoming resistant to antibiotics, building a strong immune system through eating diets, which are rich in probiotics, such as Ogi by far the best defence, reports Sade Oguntola.

Many people are tired of getting sick all the time and are looking for ways to boost their immune system health to become vibrant, healthy individuals. But it is not all that difficult to improve one’s health and stay off getting sick.

The fact is that healthy people are not just “lucky.” They are not “cleaner” than the rest of us. Healthy people all have something in common – a strong immune system. That is easy to achieve and the ways to boost immune system health are simpler than many people think.

Studies have shown again and again that healthy people do indeed have disease-causing organisms in their systems, even though they do not get ill. Surprisingly, a strong immune system health is not maintained by avoiding germs, but by a strengthened body system capable of destroying disease-causing germs that gets into the body. And with more and more strains of bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics, a strong immune system is by far the best defence.

Wondering how best to strengthen your immune system? Well, daily supplementation with beneficial bacterial strains, what is called probiotics, may boost measures of immune function by about 50 per cent.

Probiotics are defined as “live micro-organisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host. Presently, probiotics are available in a variety of food products and supplements. In the United States of America, the food products containing probiotics are almost exclusively dairy products, fluid milk and yoghurt, due to the historical association of lactic acid bacteria with fermented milk.

Equally, in Nigeria, there are various fermented food products ranging from “ogi” (fermented maize gruel); “ogi-baba” (fermented millet gruel), “fufu” (fermented cassava products) and “wara” (fermented milk product) etc from which lactic acid bacteria (LAB), which display probiotic properties,  have been isolated.  Ogi is called akamu among the Igbo.

According to findings published in the British Journal of Nutrition, a daily supplements of probiotics such as Bifidobacterium animalis (BB-12) or Lactobacillus paracasei (L. casei 431) was associated with 66 per cent and 46 per cent increases in levels of the antibody IgG3, respectively, an indication that intake of probiotics supplementation would lead to reduced rates of infections. IgG antibodies are very important in fighting bacterial and viral infections.

The researcher randomly assigned the study participants to receive daily supplements of BB-12 or L.casei 431 (a minimum of one billion colony forming units) or placebo for six weeks. After two weeks of supplementation, the volunteers received a seasonal ‘flu vaccine. Four weeks later, the researchers recorded substantial increases in ‘flu antibodies in the probiotic groups, compared with the placebo group.

Strangely enough, the type of food one eats may influence the type of bacteria that thrive in the gut, meaning that through dietary changes it may be possible to replace one’s microbial population with ‘friendly’ bacteria such as that provided by fermented foods such as “ogi” , “ogi-baba”, “fufu” , “wara” and  dairy products, such as yoghurt.

‘Friendly’ bacteria are bacteria such as lactic acid bacteria and Bifidobacterium animalis which help to fight off the potentially disease-causing germs such as Escherichia coli as well as keep the intestinal tracts ‘in balance’. When friendly bacteria are not at the appropriate levels, and when unfriendly germ dominate, health problems such as production of gas, bloating, intestinal toxicity, constipation, and malabsorption of nutrients can occur.

Infectious microorganisms act in certain ways that allow them to cause disease. These actions include gaining access to the host, adhering to and colonising cell surfaces, invading tissues, and producing toxins and other harmful metabolites. Also, studies have suggested that these microbes could have implications for conditions including obesity and inflammatory bowel disease. For instance, recent research in mice suggested that intestinal bacteria may even affect mood and depression.

In the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers demonstrated that mice fed with Lactobacillus rhamnosus JB-1 showed significantly fewer stress, anxiety and depression-related behaviours than those fed with just broth.

Moreover, the research team, led by Professor John Cryan at the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre in University College Cork, Ireland, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that ingestion of the bacteria resulted in significantly lower levels of the stress-induced hormone, corticosterone.

The study, which highlighted the important role that gut bacteria play in the bidirectional communication between the gut and the brain, the gut–brain axis, and opens up the intriguing opportunity of developing unique microbial-based strategies for treatment for stress-related psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and depression, indicated that regular feeding on probiotics have the potential to alter brain neurochemistry, thus affecting anxiety and depression-related disorders.

What’s more, regular consumption of dairy-based probiotic formulations are associated with a 20 per cent reduction in the risk of pre-eclampsia, a complication in pregnancy. More importantly, researchers suggested in the American Journal of Epidemiology that daily intake of dairy-based probiotics such as yogurt was associated with a 39 per cent reduction in risk of severe pre-eclampsia.

Pre-eclampsia, affecting two to three per cent of all pregnancies, occurs when a mother’s blood pressure rises to the hypertensive range, and excretion of protein in the urine becomes too high. It is estimated to be responsible for about 60,000 deaths worldwide.

But Dr Oyediran Oyewole, a public health expert from the Department of Public promotion and Education, College of Medicine, Ibadan, stated that combining life food with dead food is important to build body immunity. Life food means any food item that is not processed before it is consumed such as fruits. The nutrients in life foods have not been destroyed by heat or through processing.

According to him, “probiotics are the live organisms that we ingest as part of our meals to boost immunity. Any product such as Ogi that is fermented contains some organisms that can confer immunity.  I remember when I was very young, after my grandmother prepared pap, she would add the water on the raw slurry. This is called omikan in Yoruba and it contains a lot of probiotics.  So, when you take food items that are rich in probiotics, you would be healthier.”

Nonetheless, with civilisation and erosion of Nigerians diet, he stated, many industries are already coming up with products such as yogurt that people can patronise as sources of probiotics. Although locust bean is also a fermented product, he stated, with application of heat during cooking, whatever friendly organism that it might contain would have being destroyed.

According to Dr Oyewole, “even when the locust bean is washed with plenty of water, this does not ensure that whatever deadly organisms that might be present in it would have being removed.”

Moreover, the slurry of carbohydrate-based fermented Nigerian foods, such as (fermented maize gruel); “ogi-baba” (fermented millet gruel); “fufu” (fermented cassava products) and “wara” (fermented milk product) have been known to control diarrhoea in animals and man.

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