Interviewer: Why do athletes need to take probiotics?
Dr. Stern: Athletes and every single person I've ever met needs to take probiotics. First of all, I've never met a person who hasn't been on an antibiotic at least one time. Once you're on an antibiotic, it's going to affect your system and you're going to need to boost your microbiome or your good bacteria.
Second of all, I've never met with someone who hasn't been on an antibiotic, but let's say I meet someone who's never been on one. The foods they eat ... If they're not a complete vegan for their whole life, the foods they eat will have antibiotics in them. The meats, the grains.
Antibiotics are in our system through the environment. We're getting antibiotics. We're getting pesticides. We're getting things in our system that are actually killing our good bacteria and proliferating or making our bad bacteria grow stronger.
Whether you take antibiotics, because most people have taken antibiotics in their life, whether you're living in our world and breathing our air and eating our food and being in our environment, we're getting things in our system unfortunately in today's day and age that are actually destroying our good bacteria.
You need to support that. If you go running for 10 miles, you're going to need more protein, carbohydrates to support your body than if you sit in a chair all day.
Well, if you're living in this day and age and your bacteria are going down, you need to have a probiotic to boost those good bacteria back up. To me, a probiotic is just like a multi. They are supplements that are essential to our diet which are being given to ourselves every single day.