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Are Antibiotics Safe for Triathletes?

Thursday, 17 March 2016 01:10

By Pip Taylor (velonews.com and triathlon.competitor.com)

If an athlete must use antibiotics for an infection, what steps can he take to limit the damage to his healthy gut biome? Should he take priobiotics? What about prebiotics? How much of these and when?

Antibiotics are sometimes necessary. But even when necessary they can still play havoc with a healthy gut biome. In Japan, probiotics are regularly prescribed simultaneously with antibiotics in recognition of the fact that while the...

antibiotics do their job in killing off disease-causing bacteria, they also kill off healthy bacteria. Supplying probiotics is an attempt to help counter this effect.

You can help yourself and the bacterial population residing in your gut through a diet that supplies both probiotics, which are supplementary healthy gut bacteria, and prebiotics, which are the foods that fuel the healthy bacteria already residing in your gut. Supplemental probiotics might also be helpful, especially if you are following a course of antibiotics.

Help your gut with a diet that supplies fermented foods such as kefir, yogurt, miso, kombucha, sauerkraut and other fermented vegetables. These foods are full of healthy bacteria that will help you digest. READ MORE