Key Takeaways:
- When consumed in the right amounts, probiotics help to add good bacteria to your digestive system.*
- Taking high-quality probiotics can support women with their immune health, vaginal wellness, stress, energy, sleep, digestion, and/or bone density.*
As a woman, your gut health needs are unique.
While everyone can benefit from taking probiotics, they’re especially important for women’s health and wellness.
Let’s take a closer look at how probiotics work, the benefits of probiotics for women, and the best probiotics supplements for you.
How do probiotics work?
Between 39 and 300 trillion bacteria live inside you, and these tiny microorganisms are essential to your health.1 You always have good and bad bacteria that exist inside your body—mainly in the gut. When you’re healthy and feeling good, you have a diverse and balanced gut microbiome that helps to regulate bodily functions, such as digestion. But when you have occasional gut troubles, harmful bacteria can enter your body, creating an imbalance in your gut microbiome.2 Enter probiotics.
When consumed in the right amounts, probiotics help to add good bacteria to your body. They help to fight off harmful bacteria and maintain a healthy balance in the gut.* Probiotics can be consumed as supplements or from fermented foods such as yogurt, sauerkraut, tempeh, and kimchi. The most common probiotic bacteria are Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium.
How long do probiotics take to work?
Whether you’re new to or have taken probiotics in the past, you may be wondering how long it takes probiotics to affect your body. Probiotics’ effectiveness depends on various factors, such as the strains, dosage, and formula of the probiotic or the bacteria you already have in your body, your age, etc.3
It depends on what you’re taking probiotics for, but you may experience improvements as early as a few days or as long as a few months.
How do you know if probiotics are working?
When you take a high-quality probiotic supplement, you may notice several positive changes in your body, like less stomach discomfort or relief from occasional constipation.* However, everyone’s experience taking probiotics differs and will depend on the probiotics and why you’re taking them.
Probiotics can support digestion and gut health, but introducing specific clinically-studied strains can also help with immune health, bone density, and more.* Read more about the many benefits of probiotics below!
7 probiotic benefits for women
Immune support
Do you experience more digestive problems when you’re sick? There’s a reason for that. The immune system and digestive system are deeply interconnected—in fact, 70% of your immune system is housed in your gut.4 This means immune cells that help to create antibodies for fighting sickness are interacting with your gut microbiota.5
Not only do probiotics help maintain a balance of healthy bacteria, but they also promote immune health.*
Vaginal wellness
Like your gut, your vagina also has a complex microbiome, home to billions of microorganisms.6 Many unique factors in women, such as hormones, antibiotics, environment, and life events, such as pregnancy, influence the health of a vagina’s microbiome.7 A healthy vaginal microbiome mainly consists of the Lactobacillus bacteria, which produces various benefits.8 Taking probiotics that include this strain can help to increase beneficial bacteria in the vaginal microbiome and maintain a balanced state.9
Our Women’s Complete Probiotic includes 8 clinically-studied bacterial strains like Lactobacillus acidophilus La-14, Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, and Lactobacillus plantarum HEAL9 to support your digestive health, vaginal wellness, and bone density.*
Sleep support
Is poor gut health keeping you up at night? When it comes to your sleep, don’t overlook the role your gut plays in having deep, restorative sleep. Research shows that caring for your gut microbiome is one of the best ways to promote sleep.10 And one of the best ways to do this is by taking a quality probiotic, like our Advanced Sleep Support Probiotic. Each serving supports restful sleep and recovery and includes 5 clinically-studied strains with GABA and melatonin.*
Stress support
If you’ve ever felt “butterflies” in your stomach when you’re feeling nervous, this is a way that stress is felt in the gut. If your brain contemplates stressful thoughts, it can send signals to the gut. Likewise, if you’re experiencing occasional stomach discomfort, signals are sent to your brain.11
Some probiotic strains (i.e. Lacticaseibacillus paracasei Lpc-37) have been shown to help relieve occasional stress* and are a great addition to other stress management strategies, such as exercise, proper sleep, and mindfulness.*12 Our new Women’s Complete, Advanced Sleep Support, and Advanced Bowel Support Probiotics contain this clinically-studied strain.
Read more: How stress impacts gut health & digestion
Bone health
Bone is a living tissue that constantly replaces old bone cells with new ones. However, this process slows down for women when they reach menopause as estrogen levels decrease.13 As a result, you start losing bone mineral content, and the bones weaken.
Luckily, you can delay bone loss and support bone mineral density with the help of probiotics.* Studies have shown that probiotic supplementation can help strengthen your bone health.14 In addition to taking probiotics, it’s also important to support your bone density by consuming more calcium and vitamin D, and doing weight-bearing exercises. Our Women’s Complete Probiotic includes clinically-studied strains to help support bone mineral density in postmenopausal women.*
Read more: How does gut health impact bone health?
Energy and metabolism
Your gut helps manage your metabolism by breaking down carbs and fats and turning them into energy for the body. Having a healthy microbiome is important to support this process. Not to mention, occasional digestive symptoms such as abdominal discomfort, constipation, and irregular bowel movements may contribute to feelings of fatigue and low energy.15 Taking advantage of a probiotic, like our Weight Management Probiotic with Capsimax®, can support metabolism, energy, and digestive health.*
Digestive health
Most of us know the digestive benefits of taking probiotics. Depending on the strain and dosage, probiotics bring in beneficial microbes into the digestive tract, which can help support healthy bowel movements, nutrient absorption, and a variety of gastrointestinal issues.*16
If you’re thinking of taking probiotics, consult with your doctor about the best options for you.
Best probiotics for women
Introducing our new line of probiotics, guaranteed to do more than a solid favor for your gut.
Women’s Complete Probiotic
This formulation includes strains that offer vaginal support, reduce perceived stress and exhaustion when mildly or moderately stressed, and support bone mineral density in postmenopausal women.* It’s made with 8 clinically-studied strains and is guaranteed to have 30 billion CFU.
Advanced Daily Support Probiotic
Our advanced daily formula helps with occasional digestive concerns, including regurgitation, abdominal discomfort, gurgling, constipation, irregular bowel movements, and gas.* It also promotes immune health in physically active adults.* This probiotic is formulated with 5 clinically-studied strains and is guaranteed to have 30 billion CFU.
Advanced Sleep Support Probiotic
If you’re seeking digestive support and restful sleep and recovery, this probiotic is for you.* It’s clinically shown to reduce perceived stress and exhaustion when mildly or moderately stressed and recover lost sleep while highly stressed.* Each serving is formulated with 5 clinically-studied strains, GABA, Melatonin, and is guaranteed to have 30 billion CFU.
Advanced Bowel Support Probiotic
This advanced probiotic provides relief from occasional gas, bloating, and abdominal discomfort.* It also supports occasional travel-related diarrhea and is clinically shown to reduce perceived stress and exhaustion when mildly or moderately stressed and recover lost sleep while highly stressed.* It also promotes immune health in physically active adults.* Each serving contains 5 clinically-studied strains and is guaranteed to have 30 billion CFU.
Read more: 7 vitamins and supplements every woman should be taking
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Go with your gut
Women have unique needs. Taking quality probiotics is a great way to support your health, from your immune system to your energy.*
Want easy tips on staying healthy? Follow us on TikTok! (@solgarvitamins)
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
The information provided on this site is intended for your general knowledge only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice or treatment for specific medical conditions. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. The information on this website is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Never disregard medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on the Solgar® site.
