Vaccines have been top of mind for months now, crowding the headlines as we continue to deal with the global pandemic.
If you decide that this vaccine – or any vaccine – is the best choice for you, you’ll want to make sure you’re setting your body up for optimal success. Otherwise, you may end up with a sore arm, some flu-like symptoms, and less-than-complete coverage.
After all, there’s a difference between getting a vaccine and holistically supporting the health of your body against infection.
And a commonly overlooked aspect that may hold the key to getting the most out of any preventative approach has to do with harnessing the power of your gut microbiome (the trillions of bacteria in your gut.)
Because if they’re not on board and in balance, you’ll be vaccinated… but not fully protected.
How Vaccines Work… Or Don’t Work
Vaccines themselves don’t protect you. They work by teaching your immune system how to defend against specific bacteria and viruses.
So, really, vaccines are like training tools for your immunity. But your body has to be able to use and understand that training in order for you to get proper protection.
That’s where your gut microbiome – your immune system’s first teacher – can make all the difference. Even before you’re born, your gut microbiome plays a critical role in how your immune system develops. And, over the course of your life, your gut will continue to train your immune system so it knows how to recognize and deal with threats.
Now, there’s a growing body of research linking gut health with vaccine effectiveness…
And when your gut microbiome is out of balance, it can interfere with your immunity and lead to a poor vaccine response.
Gut Imbalances Decrease Vaccine Effectiveness
Your gut microbiome contains both beneficial probiotic bacteria and harmful pathogens. In a well-balanced gut, pathogens are vastly outnumbered by probiotics – and those helpful bacteria provide a wealth of health benefits.
But when your gut microbiome is out of balance – a condition called dysbiosis – pathogenic bacteria dominate. And the bad bacteria can confuse and interfere with your immunity. And that includes the work done by vaccines.
In fact, many scientific studies show that dysbiosis decreases vaccine effectiveness. Here’s a quick look at some of this eye-opening research:
- Gut dysbiosis reduces the activation of important immune cells, which decreases the effectiveness of TB (tuberculosis) vaccines
- Antibiotics (which often cause dysbiosis) given to infant mice weakened their antibody responses to 5 vaccinations
- Dysbiosis decreases the effectiveness of flu shots, increasing the risk of getting infected with circulating flu viruses
Even worse, dysbiosis causes such big problems with vaccine effectiveness that some scientists have proposed including probiotics in vaccinations to make them work better.
Fortunately, you don’t have to wait for a probiotic-enhanced vaccine... You can take steps to rebalance your gut microbiome today, and let it naturally boost your immunity.
Rebalance Your Gut to Improve Vaccine Potential
You can combat dysbiosis and give yourself a better chance of getting the most out of vaccines by rebalancing your gut microbiome. A healthy, well-balanced gut can make all the difference when it comes to vaccine effectiveness.
Scientific studies show that a healthy gut microbiome can improve the chances of a vaccine having a positive impact on your immunity. One study found that adding beneficial bacteria to germ-free mice (mice with no gut microbiomes) vastly improved their responses to vaccines.
Additionally, vaccine effectiveness seems to depend (at least partly) on microbiome diversity, – In other words, having many different strains of probiotic bacteria is an indicator of potential vaccine success.
So more beneficial microbe diversity leads to stronger vaccine responses… another way a healthy gut microbiome helps your immune system benefit from vaccines.
Diversity Matters: Well-balanced gut microbiomes contain diverse bacteria… while unbalanced guts in dysbiosis have only a limited number of strains.
And a new Norwegian study concluded that rebalancing the gut microbiome with probiotics and prebiotics (a special kind of dietary fiber) could help reduce adverse reactions to virus vaccines.
So if you want to give your immune system its best shot at being healthy and strong, you need your gut microbiome to be in optimal balance.
How to Rebalance Your Gut Microbiome
You can rebalance your gut and keep it in healthy balance by taking two very simple steps:
1. Support your beneficial bacteria: High quality spore probiotics help replenish a diverse population of probiotic bacteria.
These highly specialized probiotic strains clear the way for other friendly bacteria to grow and multiply – AND – they help make the gut microbiome more hostile to pathogens, so they can’t get out of control.
This helps keep your gut microbiome healthy and well balanced, with a diverse mix of probiotic bacteria.
2. Nourish the probiotic population: Specific PREbiotics – the preferred food of beneficial gut bacteria – selectively nourish only probiotic bacteria. This allows the probiotic bacteria to flourish, so they can crowd out pathogens and keep your gut microbiome in healthy balance.
By regularly supplementing with clinically studied spore probiotics and targeted prebiotics, your gut microbiome will stay in great shape. This in turn will give your immune system much-needed support… and improves the potential effectiveness of any vaccines you choose for yourself and your family.
Keep Your Gut in Healthy Balance with Just Thrive
Maintaining a well-balanced gut microbiome has never been easier. Just Thrive Probiotic and Just Thrive Precision PREbiotic work together to help keep your gut healthy and happy. And a healthy gut contributes to healthy immune system function!
Just Thrive Probiotic contains four clinically studied strains of spore probiotics, all shown to promote healthy balance in the gut microbiome.
Just Thrive Precision PREbiotic was specially designed to selectively nourish only probiotic bacteria to improve diversity and balance in the gut microbiome.
Add Just Thrive Probiotic and Just Thrive Precision PREbiotic to your daily routine today.
