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New research provides further evidence that probiotics are critical to good health. They affect many essential body functions and is the key to your anti-aging process. Many take a multi-vitamin every day as a sort of insurance policy to cover your basis. The truth is that probiotics is likely to be even more important than your multi-vitamin. Probiotics are the beneficial bacteria that exist mainly in your gastrointestinal tract, also known as the gut, which extends from the mouth, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, to the rectum. But billions of probiotics also live in the ears, eyes, nose, armpits, toes, lungs, appendix, joints, vagina, and urinary tract. Your gut is a complex ecosystem of bacteria, fungi, and protozoa called the gut flora. There is a constant war going on in the gut between the good and the bad bacteria. If you have a healthy gut flora, you have a strong army of good bacteria or probiotics. The gut barrier is your protective shield against unfriendly invaders, such as bacteria, toxins, and allergens, which enter the body on a daily basis via your food, water, and air. There are 10 times more probiotics than cells (100 trillion) in the body. Probiotics total about 3.5 pounds of your body weight, more than your heart (0.7 lbs) or your brain (3 lbs). Augment Immune Function Probiotics are responsible for 70-80% of your immune response. When they detect harmful invaders, they repress their growth through competitive exclusion and keep them from colonizing and penetrating the digestive tract. Probiotics also teach the immune system not to overreact to intruders, like allergens, that are harmless to the body. Researchers believe that allergies occur when the gut flora has more of the harmful species of bacteria and not enough of the beneficial ones. The gastrointestinal tract of a fetus is sterile. When a mother gives a vaginal birth, the baby experiences its first dose of probiotic inoculation in the birth canal. If the mother is healthy, her vagina will be richly populated with a healthy gut flora. Later on, consumption of breast milk gives the baby more probiotics as the mother's colostrum (first milk) has up to 40% probiotic content. As the baby grows, bacteria begin to colonize in his/her digestive tract. Probiotics increase the baby's immunity, reducing the frequency of colic (excessive crying) and illnesses. Probiotics help fight viruses such as colds, flu, rotavirus, herpes, and ulcers. Probiotics have a protective effect against bladder, breast, and colon cancers. Researchers discovered that the presence of a healthy gut flora positively influences the activity of your genes,