The gut is our ‘second brain’ so, it needs to be feed proper nutrients like good bacteria, for a healthy life. Maintaining a good microflora can prove fruitful for a healthy life. The gut microbiota is also known as prebiotics, which like every living organism has a limited lifespan.
Speaking of prebiotics, let’s define the concept and discover its benefits.
Prebiotics are nutrients that are degraded by gut microbiota and utilised as food. Recent scientific findings have established the importance and their relationship with our health. After being degraded by the gut bacteria, they are converted into short-chain fatty acids and enter the bloodstream.
Fructo-oligosaccharides and galacto-oligosaccharides, the two distinctive prebiotics groups, have a great impact on human health. These components naturally exist in small quantities, thus scientists focus on producing prebiotics on a large scale.
Food Sources: The main source of prebiotics is dietary fibre, which exists in fruits and vegetables. Apart from this, one can even opt for a protein supplement, if needed. Banana, raw onions, raw garlic, chicory root, asparagus and whole wheat flour are examples of prebiotics in the diet.
The various benefits of prebiotics are discussed below:
Improves Gut Health: Our gut is home to over 200 healthy bacterias which administer over 2 million genes important for our overall health and well-being. Prebiotics serves as a food for these bacterias and encourages them to grow leading to a healthy colon and bowel movement. 
Improves Glycemic Response: Prebiotic is the form of dietary fibre which can be either soluble or insoluble. They can delay the release of sugar in the blood which in turn helps in maintaining glycemic response in the body. It also leads to a sustained and gradual release of glucose in the blood which prevents the immediate spike of insulin in the body.
Lowers Cholesterol: Prebiotics help maintains the lipid profile by lowering the high cholesterol levels from the body. The fibres help improve the excretion of cholesterol from the body and thus, leads to lowering its levels. 
Relieve Constipation: Prebiotics, especially in the form of insoluble dietary fibre, improves the bowel movement which relieves from occasional and acute constipation. 
Manages Obesity: Prebiotics, as they are rich in soluble and insoluble fibre, keeps the stomach full for a long period which helps avoid overeating. 
Mineral Absorption: The intestine is where the minerals are absorbed in the body and prebiotics improve the intestinal health for better mineral absorption. The better absorption of minerals improves the overall health of the body. 
Organ Detox: Due to various intrinsic and environmental factors, the internal organs store unwanted toxic compounds that can injure the functioning of the body. Prebiotics help remove these unwanted compounds from the organs. These toxic compounds include heavy metals that are deposited inside the organs, which the fibre entraps in its gel-like structure. Therefore, it works as an organ detoxifier that helps in excretion of unwanted toxic compounds.
Prebiotics posses an extraordinary impact on human health, which makes them crucial components for improving the quality of human life against any communicable degenerative diseases like cancer, vascular diseases, obesity, etc. There are many scientific investigations on the positive effects of prebiotics on human health.
By discovering the basic mechanisms of prebiotics, scientists can formulate enhanced food supplements to improve human health. The capacity to normalize the balance of the gut microbiota by prebiotic dietary substances is an appealing procedure in the control and healing of some foremost disorders. In other words, the gut microbiota as a major body organ should be fed prebiotics to become healthier, impacting one’s health positively.