Can Yogurt Make You Live Longer?

During my college days, very few people took yogurt seriously. It had a funny taste and not everyone was willing to make the sacrifice of eating it.

That trend changed when yogurt was marketed as a health food. New flavors like vanilla and strawberry were introduced and sugar-free and low-fat brands began appearing in the market. To¬day, yogurt comes in frozen or liquid forms and yogurt-related drinks are becoming popular as well.

No longer is taste a problem - many products can now please the palate. What's bugging me at present - as it did in the past - are the health claims made for yogurt and similar products. Are they based on science or supersti¬tion? Is yogurt really a health food or it is simply a tasty dessert?

Yogurt probably wouldn't be as popular today were it not for the work of the Russian bacteriologist and Nobel laureate Dr. Elie Metchnikoff. Ironically, the man known for his research on human longevity had suici¬dal tendencies and attempted to end his life several times.

Metchnikoff first tried killing himself shortly after his first wife died in 1873. He became a morphine addict and injected himself with large doses of the drug, hop¬ing to put an end to his misery.

When the shots failed to kill him, the scientist tried catching pneumonia instead but that didn't work either. On his third attempt at suicide, Metchnikoff injected himself with a deadly strain of bacteria. Surpris¬ingly, he survived and that changed his outlook on life.

Taking a 180-degree turn from his grim past, Metchnikoff now became obsessed with prolonging human life. He began studying microbes in 1882 but it was not until the early 1900s that he formulated his most contro¬versial and popular anti-aging theory.

After observing that Bulgarians seemed to live longer than other people, Metchnikoff concluded that the human body was meant to last from a hundred to 150 years. Why this wasn't so, he attributed to "autointoxication" or the presence of germs in the large intestine that poisoned a person.

With that in mind, Metchnikoff started searching for something that could counteract the effects of those germs. Since Bulgarians were avid yogurt eaters who consumed an average of seven pounds a day per person, they somehow convinced the Russian scientist that the answer was found in the “white stuff” they ate. Metchnikoff isolated the bacteria in yogurt - lactobacillus bulgaricus (which was named after the people of Bulgaria) - and hailed it as the secret to long life.

"(Metchnikoff) even had the mechanism worked out: The food's 'good' bacteria took root in the gut, overwhelmed any 'bad' bacteria there, and crowded them out," said the editors of Consumer Reports, a pub¬lication of the Consumers Union of America.

With the publication of his findings in 1908, Metchnikoff’s "sour milk cure" became popular and he himself regularly took yogurt to preserve his health. But fate proved him wrong. Metchnikoff soon succumbed to heart disease. He died in 1916 at the age of 71.

Still, that hasn't stopped the makers of yogurt and other related products from cashing in on Metchnikoff’s theory. Aside from the long life pitch, yogurt is also promoted for vaginal infections, diarrhea, the lowering of cholesterol levels, and enhanced immunity. Should you believe them? Find out in the second part of this series.

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