You can talk to any microbiologist and he will tell you that there
are countless types of bacteria about which very little is known other
than they are harmless and probably contribute to the stablility of
bacterial activity.

To date, mostly pathogenic (harmful) bacteria have been studied with
any intense interest. The DNA, or genetic code, of a single bacterium
( one that causes ear infections) was deciphered for the first time
during the summer of 1995

The scientific community has now become more alert to the useful and
harmless types of bacteria and the threat to the natural environment
they live in. Only recently have certain universities received research
grants just to study these issues. Microbiologists now carry a cup and
spoon when traveling in hopes of discovering somr previously unknown
bacterial strain before it becomes extinct, due to the randomness of
of natural attrition or human intervention.

So...Whats the big deal? Why study bacteria if they arnt posing a threat
to us? One reason can be summed up in a simple concept...."competition
for food"

All bacteria whether they are useful harmless or harmful(pathogenic)
,need to eat in order to survive. They are on the lowest level of the
food chain because their food supply is organic waist. Every living
organism simple or complex, gives off organic waste during its life
span, constantly providing a food source for bacteria. When it dies,
the organism will eventually be recycled, all because bacteria are in
place to process its decomposition.

When pathogenic bacteria become dominant enough to cause problems in
a specific environment its because that strain has had little or no
competition for its food, allowing it multiply and prosper. If the
food source of a specific bacterial strain is limited, so is its growth
When enough useful and harmless bacteria are in place to compete for
that same food rource, a natural balance is estabilished, alowing no
harmful strain to become dominant.

The idea of purposley using useful and harmless bacteria to compete for
the same food source as a control of harmful bacteria, is a probiotic
concept. This is signficantly different from an antibiotic concept
which infers the use of a killing agent to destory the offender.
Antibiotics are generally very broad in scope and will attact all
bacterica: useful and harmless alike.

It is a fact that bacteria are becoming immune to most of the antibiotics
in use today. BACTERIA ARE NOT IMMUNE TO COMPETITION NOR ARE THEY LIKELY
TO BECOME IMMUNE. A diverse presence of useful and harmless bacteria, widely
disbursed, will maintain a healthier balance in any environment ....
and a probiotic concept works with nature rather than against it: