A probiotic expert has claimed that stress can have a detrimental impact on the health of children going back to school, people seeking teaching jobs may be interested to learn.

Janine Barlow warned that stress can also make children more susceptible to colds and flu.

Research carried out by the Bio-Kult Probiotic team claimed recently that stress negatively affects our health and can have an impact on the microfloral balance in our gut.

Agreeing with this, Ms Barlow explained: "When children go back to school and you think about the anxiety they will have, so a new routine, a new environment and having to meet new people can really get them quite stressed.

"This stress releases a hormone that can affect the gut microflora and the microflora are resident bacteria that we all have inside of us, which can help us live healthily and digest our food."

But when that becomes disrupted, Ms Barlow explained that it presents itself in symptoms "which is diarrhoea and makes us more liable to getting colds and flu".