How are bacteria helpful to humans

Bacteria are single celled micro-organisms. They live in various places and they are everywhere, you can find them in water, in air and inside your body.

In human body there are good bacteria as well as bad bacteria. Good bacteria are good for us but bad bacteria are not so good.

Sometimes some bacteria do kill us because they have become antibiotic resistance bacteria but sometimes they help us.

Millions and trillions of microbes live in or on our body and we don’t even realize. Some of the microbes are helpful for us in fighting the bad guys in our body but some of them are just the bad guys which causes diseases.

Here we are going to find out some of the good bacteria that do not kill us but help us. Some bacteria help us fight with bad bacteria. They also help us in digestion of our food.

4 Examples of good bacteria

Lactobacillus Acidophilus

These bacteria are generally found in fermented food. This bacteria produces an enzyme called lactase which breaks the lactose that are
found in milk products to lactic acid.

They are naturally found in intestine, stomach, vagina and oral cavity. In vagina they produce lactic acid which helps to curb fungal infections.

  1. This bacteria helps to reduce cholesterol in our body.
  2. They help to prevent against diarrhea 
  3. Helps in Weight loss
  4. Helps against Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Bifidobacterium

This bacteria is found in gastrointestinal tract, vagina and mouth humans and other mammals.

This bacteria helps our body digest fiber and other complex carbs which even our body can’t digest. This bacteria is very helpful for our gut microbiome. It makes upto 10% of the total bacteria present in our gastrointestinal tract or gut microbiome.

Escherichia coli

This bacteria is found in intestine. Some of its strains are harmful but some are useful to our body. This bacteria helps in digestion as well as it eats harmful substances that are used by other bacteria to grow. This means, it prevents us from other harmful bacteria.

This bacteria also helps to synthesize vitamin k.

Streptococcus thermophilus

This bacteria is also found in milk products and is used in production of yogurt.

This virus improves immunity too. It helps to fight against viruses, fungi and parasites that invade our gastrointestinal tract.