Gut Health – Something to Digest!
W
e are what we eat – and given that some dogs would choose to eat some pretty undesirable things it’s no surprise that some of them suffer from runny stools, flatulence and poor appetite. Combined with this, dietary sensitivity can be very common among pooches. Many dog owners will be on the lookout for a quick solution and experimenting with lots of different diets can be costly and time consuming. It can take around two weeks for the digestive system to adapt to new food. That’s one of the reasons that many dog owners turn to supplements and prebiotics and probiotics are popular choices. The intestine naturally contains many types of bacteria, especially in the large intestine. Some of those bacteria potentially have beneficial effects, while
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some produce toxins and have other adverse consequences. Both are held in balance under normal circumstances. There are number of stressors that could cause sensitive digestion, like moving to a new home, or the presence of poor quality or poorly digested food in the large gut can upset this balance, allowing the ‘bad’ bacteria to proliferate. Providing more of the ‘good’ bacteria provides a buffer against that happening and allows the gut to benefit from the effects of these good bacteria in their own right – they can for instance help gut cells stay healthy. Prebiotics add these beneficial bacteria direct – in the case of Lintbells YuDIGEST it’s a bacteria called Enterococcus faecium E1707, which is an EU registered strain of probiotics approved for dogs. A prebiotic nourishes existing populations of good bacteria in the gut
by providing them with a food source. While some fruits and vegetables contain prebiotics, adding high purity MOS, scFOS and beta-glucans directly as YuDIGEST can be even better, as there’s no need to break down food components to release them. In a gut that’s already upset and not digesting food properly, that’s likely to be a big benefit.
Herbie, a 13 year-old Border Collie, is very sensitive to noise and also finds almost any changes to his routine stressful. His stomach mirrors any stress factors in his life. As a result, he does suffer intermittently from runny stools. Thanks to YuDIGEST supplement, the problem is kept under control.
