Why I question the "myth" about yogurt
Recently in Japan, various types of yogurt such as "Caspian Sea yogurt" and "aloe yogurt" have become very popular because of their widely advertised health benefits. But I believe these are all misrepresentations.
What I often hear from people who eat yogurt is that their gastrointestinal condition has improved, they are no longer constipated, or their waist has gotten smaller. And they believe these results are due to the lactobacilli found in all yogurts.
However, this belief in the benefits of lactobacilli is questionable from the start. Lactobacilli are originally found in the human intestine. These bacteria are called "intestinal resident bacteria." The human body has a defense system against bacteria and viruses coming from the outside, so even those bacteria that are normally good for your body, like lactobacilli, will be attacked and destroyed by the body's natural defenses if they are not intestinal resident bacteria.
The first line of defense is stomach acid. When lactobacilli from the yogurt enter the stomach, most are killed by stomach acid. For that reason, there have been recent improvements made and yogurts are being sold with the catchphrase, "lactobacilli that reach your intestine."
However, even if the bacteria do reach the intestine, is it really possible for them to work hand in hand with the intestinal resident bacteria? The reason I question this claim about yogurt is because in the clinical setting, the intestinal characteristics of people who eat yogurt everyday are never good. I strongly suspect that, even if the lactobacilli in yogurt reach the intestine alive, they do not make the intestine work better but only disrupt the intestinal flora instead.
Then why do many people feel yogurt is effective in improving their health? For many, yogurt seems to "cure" constipation. This "cure," however, is actually a mild case of diarrhea. Here is the way this probably works: Adults lack enough of the enzyme that breaks down lactose. Lactose is the sugar found in milk products, but lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose, begins to decrease in our bodies as we grow older. This is natural in a sense, because milk is something infants drink, not adults. In other words, lactase is an enzyme that is not required by adults.
Yogurt contains a lot of lactose. Thus, when you eat yogurt, it cannot be properly digested owing to the lack of lactase enzymes, which in turn results in indigestion. In short, many people develop mild diarrhea when they eat yogurt. Consequently, this mild diarrhea, which is really the excretion of stagnant stool that has been accumulating in the colon until then, gets mistakenly characterized as a cure for constipation.
Your intestine's condition will worsen if you eat yogurt everyday. I can say this with confidence based on my clinical observations. If you eat yogurt everyday, the smell of your stool and gas should be increasingly pungent. This is an indication that your intestinal environment is getting worse. The reason for the smell is that toxins are being produced inside the colon. Thus, even though people talk about the health effects of yogurt in general (and yogurt companies are more than pleased to tout their own products), in reality, there are many things about yogurt that are not good for your body.
