Probiotics take another hit

(Bob M) #1

See this:

For 5-6 month (maybe longer), I tried a lot of different probiotics (even the highly-touted “soil-based” versions), with various prebiotics (potato starch, etc.) and can say I could not tell a benefit. Though I still like fermented pickles.

I also tried this yogurt, which I made at least 5 times and ate all of:

I could not tell a benefit to this.

My problem with these is that I’m trying to eat real food. If I have to specially eat and buy things to “help” me, I find that difficult, unless I buy and use them for a short time and they permanently make some change.

The problem as I see it is there is no way to know they make a change, and any change they do make is likely to be transitory. If you do research about this, you realize even if you sample your poop, if you send it to two different testing facilities, you get two different results. If you take samples from two different “locations” of the same poop and send it to the same testing facility, you can get two different results. And the study above showed that you might just be pooping out the probiotic, and not affecting the actual gut biome.

Personally, I’ve pretty much given up on probiotics/prebiotics. I will still eat fermented foods and maybe some yogurt, but I doubt they have much, if any benefit.

What are your thoughts on probiotics?

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #2

I’m a believer in the idea that eating the food we evolved to eat should take care of our needs. Of course, there are complications, such as how, in the last 150 years, foods—both plant and animal—have been bred to maximize sugar, reduce fat, etc., but I think the principle is still generally valid. I’ve read that the best way to get good gut bacteria is to eat real food.

We also know that the body’s needs are different in fat-burning mode from what they are in sugar-burning mode. For instance, there’s not nearly the same need for vitamin C in ketosis, because beta-hydroxybutyrate stimulates the body’s built-in anti-oxidants. Likewise, we need more salt in ketosis, because we’re no longer retaining it the same way, but eating meat, especially consuming the blood, gives us a lot of salt—though our ancestors probably still needed to know where the local salt lick was.

#3

I’m sorry you didn’t see any benefit in your probiotic experimentation, Bob.

My own story: I suffered from constipation for years. And then a couple of years ago, after an unexpected surgery, I was forced to take some pretty serious antibiotics, which did quite a number on my bowels for a few days (nobody warned me!). Afterwards, I dutifully repopulated my biome (as advised by several health professionals) with some high-strength probiotic supplements. And after that … all of a sudden, no more constipation, and no problems since.

My theory is that the antibiotics basically killed off everything in my gut - the good and the bad - and I was starting afresh with good repopulation via high-strength probiotic supplementation. Much as one doesn’t want emergency surgery, this was a happy side-effect.

I do have occasional fermented foods (love me some raw sauerkraut and a bit of filmjölk), but I also keep up periodic supplementation because I don’t want to go back anywhere near the way I was before.

#4

Very interesting. I’ve read/heard so many good things about pro-biotics that I recently started taking them. Maybe it was overhyped. Although, anecdotally, my poo was a lot easier to pass and less clumpy and more soft-serve-y.

(Bunny) #5
  1. Do Polyphenols Improve Your Gut Bacteria?
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