While many people think having a healthy gut only influences the digestive system, it can affect everything from immune health to mood to overall health and well-being. If you're just getting started on your gut health journey, you may be overwhelmed by all the different terminology.
This guide will introduce you to common gut health terms and teach you the difference between digestive enzymes vs. probiotics vs. prebiotics, plus when to incorporate each one into your routine to improve digestive health. But before we dive in, here are some brief definitions to get you started:
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Probiotics: Good microbes, such as bacteria and yeasts, that provide a health benefit to humans.
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Prebiotics: Food (often fiber-based) for probiotics.
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Digestive Enzymes: Specialized proteins that break down the food you eat into smaller components that can be absorbed.
Now that you know some basic definitions, let's dive into each term in more detail and explore how each can support overall gut health.
What Are Probiotics?
Probiotics are live microorganisms (such as healthy bacteria and yeasts) that, when taken in specific amounts, provide a health benefit to humans.
Probiotics support gut health by restoring and maintaining a healthy gut microbiome (the community of trillions of microbes living in your large intestine), meaning they must be able to travel through your gastrointestinal tract and arrive at the large intestine alive. Think of them as seeds to help grow your "gut garden."
How exactly do probiotics work? Current research suggests that probiotics compete with bad bacteria for nutrients and receptors, strengthen the intestinal barrier, modulate the gut's immune system, and produce neurotransmitters (chemical messengers). Some probiotics can also increase the bioavailability of nutrients, or even synthesize specific vitamins (such as vitamin K and folate) on their own.
Benefits of Probiotics
While we're still learning about the effects of probiotics, here are some benefits we currently know about:
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Strengthens the intestinal barrier: The intestinal barrier is like a protective wall in your gut that allows nutrients to pass through while keeping harmful substances (like toxins and bacteria) out. Some medical conditions are associated with increased permeability, or "leakiness", of the intestinal barrier (also known colloquially as "leaky gut"). Certain microbes help strengthen gut barrier integrity, preventing harmful substances from entering the bloodstream. They do this by stimulating the production of the proteins that make up the intestinal barrier.
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Improves digestion and nutrient absorption: Some food components (such as fiber) cannot be broken down by the enzymes in the human body. However, our gut bacteria can assist with digestion by breaking down these food components. In addition, some probiotics can increase the bioavailability of nutrients. Finally, some probiotics can produce vitamins such as vitamin K.
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Boosts immunity: When your gut bacteria break down fiber, they produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). These compounds help regulate the immune system, which can lead to better overall health and a reduced risk of chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes. Some probiotics also regulate the growth and function of immune cells in the gut.
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Produces neurotransmitters: Neurotransmitters are chemicals that send messages to the brain. Certain probiotics promote the production of neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, dopamine, and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). The production of these neurotransmitters underscores the importance of the gut-brain axis (the communication network between the gut and the brain).
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Regulates bowel movements: Certain probiotic strains can help enhance digestion and manage digestive issues such as diarrhea and constipation.
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Improves symptoms of IBS and IBD: Certain probiotic strains have been shown to improve symptoms associated with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
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Prevents and treats antibiotic-associated diarrhea: Certain probiotic strains, including Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, have been shown to help prevent and treat diarrhea associated with antibiotic use.
Keep in mind that probiotic benefits are strain-specific. Probiotics are classified by genus, species, and strain—for example, Bifidobacterium (genus), longum (species), 536 (strain). The strain is a highly specific way to differentiate between probiotics that may be the same genus and species.
This classification method is important because most probiotic benefits are observed only with certain strains. That means that just because a particular strain is beneficial for one condition (such as IBS management) does not mean that it will also be beneficial in other situations (such as preventing antibiotic-associated diarrhea). Strain-specific benefits highlight the importance of not simply taking any probiotic you find on the shelf. Instead, it's important to take the right probiotic, at the right time, for the right reason.
Probiotic Foods
Many fermented foods contain probiotics. Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium species, as well as certain yeasts, are common in the following foods:
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Yogurt
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Kefir
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Aged cheeses
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Kombucha
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Sauerkraut
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Tempeh
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Kimchi
However, not all fermented foods contain probiotics. Some products, like pasteurized sauerkraut or baked sourdough bread, lose their live bacteria during heating or processing. To ensure you're getting probiotics, choose foods labeled "contains live and active cultures" or look for refrigerated, unpasteurized options such as yogurt, kefir, or kimchi.
What Are Prebiotics?
If probiotics are the seeds, prebiotics are the fertilizer. Prebiotics are typically dietary fiber (although emerging research has shown that polyphenols, a type of plant compound, can also act as prebiotics). Since human enzymes cannot break down fiber, it instead serves as a food source for your beneficial gut bacteria.
Benefits of Prebiotics
Here are some benefits of prebiotics:
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Promote growth and activity of healthy gut bacteria: Prebiotics like resistant starch (a type of starch that resists digestion in the gut) have been shown to promote the growth of beneficial bacteria like Bifidobacterium. This helps support digestive health.
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Support a strong immune system: Some prebiotics, such as galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS), enhance immune response and the growth and activity of beneficial bacteria.
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Decrease inflammation: Some prebiotics can reduce inflammation in the body. This is often mediated through SCFA production.
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Regulates bowel movements: Prebiotics can also improve digestive health by regulating bowel movements (e.g., increasing weekly stool frequency and improving stool consistency).
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Strengthen the gut barrier: The SCFAs (especially butyrate) produced by your good gut bacteria after fermenting prebiotics act as fuel for colonocytes (the cells lining your colon), which helps strengthen the gut barrier.
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Enhance mineral absorption: Xylooligosaccharides have been shown to improve the absorption of certain minerals.
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Lower colorectal cancer rates: Prebiotics may reduce colorectal cancer risk by reducing gut dysbiosis, decreasing inflammation, and maintaining intestinal barrier function.
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Promote remission of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD): Prebiotics, along with probiotics and synbiotics (supplements containing both pre- and probiotics), have been shown to help induce or maintain remission in people with IBD.
Common Prebiotics Examples
Many high-fiber, plant-based foods act as prebiotics. Here are some examples:
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Whole grains: Oats, barley, whole wheat
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Fruits: Bananas (especially if slightly underripe), apples, berries
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Vegetables: Asparagus, onion, garlic, leeks, and Jerusalem artichoke
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Legumes: Chickpeas, lentils, black beans, kidney beans
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Nuts and seeds: Ground flax seeds, psyllium husk, chia seeds
It's important to keep in mind that many prebiotics are also FODMAPs. FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides, and Polyols. You can learn more about FODMAPs in our blog post about the low FODMAP diet, but in basic terms, they're types of fiber that resist digestion (because our body does not produce enough of the enzymes needed to break them down) and instead get fermented in the colon by your gut bacteria. This produces gas, which can be perceived as painful for people with a sensitive digestive tract (such as those with IBS).
Certain foods are high in FODMAPs, which is why foods like broccoli, onions, garlic, and beans are often problem foods for people with IBS—they're highly fermentable, which leads to painful gas,bloating, and irregular bowel movements in susceptible individuals.
However, while a temporary low FODMAP diet can be helpful for getting symptoms under control and finding out your specific food triggers, it's important not to cut out high FODMAP trigger foods forever. Eating FODMAPs leads to the production of postbiotics (like SCFAs), which have many important health benefits, such as reducing intestinal permeability ("leaky gut") and decreasing inflammation.
Fortunately, if you're sensitive to FODMAPs, digestive enzymes can help. FODMAPs and enzymes work hand-in-hand, as you'll learn in the coming sections.
What Are Digestive Enzymes?
Digestive enzymes break down and help you digest food you eat at various points along the gastrointestinal tract so that nutrients can be absorbed. If your body lacks the right digestive enzymes, this digestive process can't take place, and the body struggles to break down food and absorb nutrients properly. This can lead to poor digestion, gas, bloating, discomfort, and in some cases, nutrient deficiencies.
Common Digestive Enzymes
There are many different types of digestive enzymes, each with its own function. Here are some of the most common digestive enzymes produced by the body, all of which support healthy digestion and nutrient absorption:
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Amylase: Helps break down carbohydrates into simple sugars. The human body has both salivary amylase (which starts the breakdown of carbohydrates as you chew) and pancreatic amylase (which continues the breakdown of carbohydrates once they reach your stomach).
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Protease: Proteases help break proteins down into peptides (smaller protein chains) or single amino acids (the individual building blocks of proteins). There are several different types of proteases. Pepsin, which is found in the stomach, works in acidic conditions to break down proteins into smaller peptides. Trypsin and chymotrypsin, which are produced by the pancreas and released into the small intestine, continue breaking down peptides into even smaller peptides or single amino acids.
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Lipase: Lipase helps break down fats into fatty acids.
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Lactase: Helps break down lactose, a sugar found in milk products. Lactase is produced in the small intestine. Many people do not produce enough lactase, leading to lactose intolerance.
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Sucrase-isomaltase: Sucrase-isomaltase is an enzyme complex that breaks down two types of carbohydrates. The sucrase part breaks sucrose (table sugar) into glucose and fructose, while the isomaltase part helps complete starch digestion. Like lactase, sucrase-isomaltase is produced in the small intestine.
When digestive enzyme production is impaired, as in lactose intolerance, a person may develop symptoms such as gas, bloating, and diarrhea when they eat certain foods (in this case, the trigger foods would be dairy products that contain lactose).
Some foods also contain natural digestive enzymes. For example, papaya contains the enzyme papain, while pineapple contains the enzyme bromelain. Both of these enzymes help break down proteins.
How Do Probiotics, Prebiotics, and Digestive Enzymes Work Together?
Digestive enzymes vs. probiotics vs. prebiotics…hopefully, you now understand the unique role that each of these substances plays in the digestive system. While each has essential functions on its own, they can work even better together.
Probiotics introduce beneficial bacteria into your gut, helping balance your microbiome and improve digestion. Prebiotics serve as food for beneficial bacteria, helping them grow and thrive. However, some prebiotics, such as onions and garlic, can worsen IBS symptoms because they're highly fermentable.
That's where digestive enzyme supplementation and other dietary supplements come in. Digestive enzymes help break food down into smaller, more absorbable nutrients, ensuring your body gets the most from what you eat. Plus, when you take digestive enzymes for FODMAPs, you can reap the benefits of high FODMAP prebiotics (like onion and garlic) with less digestive discomfort.
Here's an example of how you might use all three together to support gut health. By eating more prebiotic-rich foods, you can naturally nourish your gut bacteria (and reduce the population of harmful bacteria in your gut). Adding probiotics through food or supplements can further boost the community of beneficial microbes in your gut. Finally, taking digestive enzymes can support proper digestion and reduce gastrointestinal symptoms like gas, bloating, and abdominal discomfort.
When To Take Supplements
The best time to take gut health supplements depends on the type. Here's a breakdown of when to take prebiotics, probiotics, and digestive enzymes.
Prebiotics
Remember, prebiotics feed the good bacteria in your gut. Over time, this can help restore balance to your microbiome. Many foods contain prebiotics, including oats, slightly under-ripe bananas, and psyllium husk.
Tip: Start with a small dose and gradually increase it to give your gut time to adjust. Increasing your intake of prebiotics too quickly can lead to gas and bloating, but this is often minimized when you increase the dose slowly. Remember, regular intake of prebiotics is key to a healthy digestive system and gut microbiome.
Probiotics
There's not a lot of good data on probiotic timing, so in general, the best time to take your probiotic is whenever it's convenient and easy to remember. One exception to this is if you're taking antibiotics. If you're taking probiotics to help prevent antibiotic-associated diarrhea, make sure to space out your probiotics and antibiotics by at least 2 hours.
Tip: Pair probiotic supplements with something you do every day (such as brushing your teeth) to ensure you remember to take them daily.
Digestive Enzymes
There are several conditions where the body does not produce enough digestive enzymes. This can negatively impact healthy digestion and cause food intolerances, such as lactose intolerance. In many cases, digestive enzyme supplements are needed to correct enzyme deficiencies and help digest food properly.
Here are some enzyme deficiencies seen in humans:
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Congenital sucrase-isomaltase deficiency (CSID): CSID is a rare condition you're born with that makes it hard for your body to break down table sugar (sucrose) and starches due to a deficiency of sucrase-isomaltase. People with CSID often feel bloated, gassy, or have loose bowel movements after eating foods like sweets, bread, or pasta.
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Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI): With EPI, enzyme production by the pancreas (of amylase, protease, and lipase) is impaired, so food cannot be broken down properly. This digestive enzyme insufficiency can cause symptoms such as bloating, oily stools, and unintentional weight loss (because your body can't properly absorb nutrients). It's commonly seen in people with cystic fibrosis, where mucus blocks the pancreatic ducts, preventing enzyme release.
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Lactose intolerance: Lactose intolerance occurs when your small intestine doesn't make enough of the lactase enzyme. As a result, consuming dairy products can cause gas, bloating, and diarrhea. Lactose intolerance can sometimes occur as a result of untreated celiac disease or bacterial infections like small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), both of which can damage the lining of the small intestine.
Digestive enzymes are also sometimes used when a deficiency in enzyme production is not present, such as with FODMAP intolerance. As we mentioned, under healthy, or “normal”, circumstances, FODMAPs are broken down by gut bacteria, producing healthy byproducts like SCFAs. FODMAP intolerance is partially related to an imbalance in gut bacteria, which leads to common IBS symptoms like gas and bloating. In these cases, digestive enzymes can support FODMAP tolerance, even though they’re not making up for an enzyme deficiency.
Many people take digestive enzyme supplements for issues such as acid reflux, bloating, gas, and diarrhea. Unfortunately, many digestive enzyme supplements claim to "cure" food intolerances or increase nutrient absorption, with little evidence to support these claims.
While some digestive enzymes improve symptoms in specific cases of enzyme deficiency (for example, lactase for lactose intolerance or prescription enzymes for pancreatic insufficiency), not everyone with digestive issues needs to take digestive enzymes. Instead, focus on other tried-and-true ways to promote optimal digestion, such as eating enough fiber (especially prebiotic fiber), drinking plenty of fluids, and getting enough physical activity.
However, if you do decide to take digestive enzymes for health conditions like lactose intolerance or IBS, take them with the first bite of food to ensure they start acting on the food immediately.
Tip: Keep your digestive enzymes in the kitchen where you'll see them daily. This can help you remember to take them with meals.
Digestive enzyme supplements like FODZYME can offer digestive support for people with FODMAP intolerance since they include digestive enzymes for FODMAPs (fructans, GOS, and lactose). These enzymes break down FODMAPs before they reach the large intestine. This reduces bacterial fermentation, significantly improving gas and bloating while reducing stomach discomfort.
If you have IBS-like symptoms and struggle with high FODMAP foods like onions, garlic, dairy products, and beans, consider trying FODZYME to support digestion and reduce gut symptoms.