We all experience constipation at some time in our lives because we often don’t or are unable to have a sufficient amount of fiber in our diets. Incorporating fiber into the diet helps prevent constipation because fiber is nature’s best laxative. Forget about pharmaceutical-grade laxatives because these, more often than not, contain chemicals that can cause adverse side effects.
Prune juice is the result when dried plums are pulverized and dissolved in hot water. The vitamin C may be a little degraded in fresh plums from the drying process but the majority of nutrients remain highly concentrated when dried plums are transformed into prunes.
Prune juice, unlike most other juices from fresh fruits, is able to retain a significantly higher amount of the nutritive value and health benefits of plums.
Interestingly enough, the fiber in plums are retained including its sorbitol content, a kind of sugar alcohol that helps loosen stool. Considered a mild form of colonic, sorbitol is able to decrease stool’s transit time that prevents constipation to occur.
While the fiber in prune juice can help you pass stools with less difficulty, do remember that increasing fiber intake abruptly can cause bloating or gas.
Does Prune Juice Help with Constipation?
From doctors to practitioners of traditional medicine, they all agree that prune juice has powerful laxative properties that can bring about relief from constipation. The best prune juice is the unfiltered kind that contains much of the natural fiber of dried plums. The laxative effect of prune juice yields optimal result when it is taken on an empty stomach.
How Does Prune Juice Help With Constipation?
Prune juice for constipation? How does that work? Well around half of the total fiber content in prune juice is soluble that dissolves into a substance with gel-like consistency. This binds itself into fatty acids like cholesterol to eliminate them quickly.
The soluble fiber in prune juice slows sugar absorption which, in turn, helps control the levels of blood sugar. Amazingly, insoluble fiber is found in prune juice as well.
This other kind of fiber increases the size of your stools and hastens the travel of waste material throughout your digestive tract, an action that regularizes bowel movement.
Prune juice is comparable, nutrition-wise, to its dried fruit version. Moreover, the prunes that you juice pack more antioxidants than other vegetable or fruit including blueberries and raisins.
Based on data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), one cup, or eight ounces, of prune juice has 182 calories, zero fat, 1.6 grams protein and 45 grams carbohydrates, 42 grams of which are considered natural sugars. This serving can supply you with the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for potassium (20%), vitamin C (18%), iron (17%), and fiber, niacin or vitamin B3, and vitamin K at 10% each.
Alternative to Prune Juice for Constipation
There are two alternatives that you can use for constipation if you’re not a fan of prune juice. See below for a summary of the two alternatives:
ALTERNATIVE #1 - PROBIOTICS
If you don’t particularly like prune juice, however, you can try probiotics to help you handle constipation. King’s College researchers in London revealed 14 studies, all of them clinical trials, which randomly assigned people who had constipation to take placebos or probiotics.
Results showed that probiotics slowed “gut transit time” by 12.4 hours and increased the frequency of bowel movements by 1.3 times in a week.
Additionally, the researchers found out that probiotics helped significantly in softening stools so they can be passed easier. Probiotics which contained the friendly Bifidobacterium bacteria was, by far, the study’s most effective probiotic.
If you would like to find out what others have had to say about probiotics, you can do so by going to this page here.
ALTERNATIVE #2 - HYPERBIOTICS
Another alternative to prune juice for treating constipation is Hyperbiotics PRO-15, a formulated designed to support the immune system.
With five strains of broad spectrum that include Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus, Hyperbiotics help repopulate the gut with four billion colony forming units or CFUs of friendly bacteria per BIO-tract® tablet.
Hyperbiotics offers a shelf life, fully guaranteed, of 18 months from the date of its manufacture. Other probiotics are unable to provide any date of guarantee because their formulation includes inferior organisms that die quickly after the product’s manufacture.
Additionally, Hyperbiotics do not contain any of the following:
- Soy
- Preservatives
- Eggs
- Iron
- Chemicals
- Sugar
- Nuts
Hyperbiotics is lactose-, gluten- and wheat-free and without any artificial sweeteners, colors or flavors. The product does not contain any animal by-products and is not tested on animals, two factors that vegetarians will appreciate.
Prune juice is an excellent choice to treat constipation but if you don’t like the taste of prune juice then we recommend you try Hyperbiotics as an alternative solution to constipation issues. You can find out more by reading what others have had to say about it here.
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