It’s been clear to me for years that I need a better population of bacteria in my gut. We don’t need to get into why.
So, probiotics. I’m told yogurt has some at one point but most are killed in the pasteurization process. Activia is supposed to be good for this though.
Kombucha is also supposed to help. Stuff tastes like Zima made a malt liquor, but I am willing to keep drinking it if it really does help.
What’s the word or these two or any other non-woo way to promote good gastrointestinal health.
On the advice of my gastroenterologist, I’ve been taking Align daily. It’s a probiotic pill that contains B. infantis 35624. I wonder, though, why continued use is necessary. Surely once the desirable bacteria develop a colony in my intestinal tract, I can stop taking the probiotic?
I suppose that depends on why your gut bacteria were depleted in the first place?
If the reason your gut flora died off or are out of whack still exists then you might need to continue to take a probiotic. But the real person to ask this question is your doctor.
For the OP - you can get unpasteurized and/or yogurt with live cultures. Heck, you can even make your own yogurt - my brother-in-law makes a batch a week for his own consumption.
I don’t know much about kombucha, so I won’t say anything about it.
Broomstick is correct that you ought to talk to your doctor. Most people probably don’t really need a probiotic, because they already have gut flora working fine. But there are circumstances that can mess up your system. I think a C Diff infection can result in a situation where a fecal transplant is necessary to repopulate things. It’s not as gross as it sounds, as I believe you just take a capsule. And I’ve heard of research suggesting that differences in gut flora can result in differences in health, so we may be seeing more about this in the future.
instead of factory yogurt, look for White Mountain Bulgarian Yogurt. it’s the real thing with just milk and cultures. no carrageenan, pectin, or gums to stabilize it.
GT’s kombucha is the only one i like. all the rest are too sweet or have artificial sweetners.
i have some of both every day, but if i had to pick one of the above for health reasons i’d go with the yogurt. more nutrient, less sugar. kombucha is just a sweet fizzy drink with cultures.
frankly, if you’re looking for active cultures, i would just get a bottle of probiotic capsules and call it a day. the higher the count (20 billion, 30 billion etc.) the better. start by taking 1 cap and see how that does you. take a break from time to time and switch brands to get a wider variety of bacteria.
You can make your own kombucha as well. Its even easier than making yogurt. It ferments at room temperature, once it’s started with a couple of bottles of commercial (live) kombucha, you can drain off some of the finished product every week and add back more sweetened tea for the next batch.
It does form this weird pancake shaped thing called a SCOBY, but you don’t have to do anything with it besides pull a few layers off when it gets too thick. I’ve got a 2 gallon crock with a tap, that puts out about 3 quarts of finished kombucha a week.
Not sure how that’s not “factory yogurt”; it’s made in a plant someplace and packaged for sale, presumably in supermarkets. And there are plenty of brands of yogurt that are just milk and active cultures.
ok what i meant by factory yogurt was dannon and the like which are edible yogurt-like substances. it’s a thin milky liquid stabilized with usually pectin, but i’ve also seen the various gums used. it’s not real cultured yogurt in the way that White Mountain is a real cultured yogurt. i suppose there are others now, but WM is the best one i’ve had.
yes, White Mountain is mass produced in a large facility resembling a factory.
which brands do you recommend? the goal is an ingredient list of two items. milk and cultures.
Anything fermented, so yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles (not the vinegar ones like vlasic), etc. will have probiotics.
Also useful is to make sure you’re upping or maintaining your intake of prebiotic foods. Once you get the bacteria in your gut, you should eat lots of fibrous foods like veggies, fruits and oats to make sure you’re giving your new bacteria plenty of food to help them flourish.
Well, many brands are regional, but Chobani (I think the largest market share in the country) has only cultured milk and cream in the ingredients list for its whole milk plain yogurt. It’s a Greek-style yogurt and that may not appeal to everyone. There are specialty brands that are more Russian-style or Indian-style yogurts.
TLDR abstract: Probiotics - do they work? Dunno. See clinical trial list below.
Discussion: In Europe, seven or eight years ago, the law was changed so that if you wanted to make a health claim about a probiotic, that was fine - all you had to do was substantiate it. The inevitable effect was that advertising claims changed from eg This will make you well to eg This contains lots of friendly bacteria.
Never my area of specialisation, but I was aware of it. And so this thread moved me to wonder if there had been much of an effort to substantiate anything about probiotics. Answer: yes, more than you would think. In Europe (don’t know about elsewhere) clinical studies have had to be notified for some time now. Here’s the list for probiotics:
The areas of study are all over the place, and I’m not interested enough to trawl what results are available. One thing I would note is that if I see a study that started 10 years ago and there are still no results available, I don’t get my hopes up.
But bacteria are not fungible. Lifting the amount of Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus (the bacteria in yogurt) may or may not do anything for you. Different strains have different properties. Yogurt bacteria are mostly good at turning sugar into lactic acid. Unless lactic acid deficiency is your issue, having extra yogurt bacteria in your intestines might not do much.
But so my recommendations would be:
For every probiotic, do some research to determine that the strain is one that can survive the stomach or that the probiotic (if a pill) has a coating or some other mechanism to help ensure that the bacteria makes it to the intended destination.
Try different strains to identify which one (if any) helps your situation. Just because one probiotic fails doesn’t mean that “probiotics are useless”, it just means that that strain doesn’t do what you need something to do.
While adding probiotics may produce some benefits to your gut health there are also some not so sexy ways of helping what you do have out; To wit, regular exercise, more fiber (and we’re talking changing your dietary habits not just popping more Metamucil), and more fermented foods as noted. The fiber thing is particularly important, as noted here, The lifesaving food 90% aren’t eating enough of - BBC News. When I’ve had to take a course of antibiotics after a diverticulitis attack I’ve usedBio K+ on recommendation of my doctor to help get things back into balance.
Hate to say it, but eat less, and better plus exercise is still the best prescription of overall health out there.
Since you are bringing up probiotics, it is also worthwhile to bring up antibiotics.
A very worrisome bacteria in human guts is Heliobacter Pylori. About 30% of the US population (more depending on your ethnic group) has it in their guts (1) and it is known for all kinds of ailments. Scientists are divided over the health concerns and what’s the okay level of this bacteria in your gut.
There have been no scientifically proven benefits for consumption of kombucha in humans. Whether that is because there are none or they just have not been found is not known.
There are health risks that have been shown with kombucha.
Actually, just a course of oral antibiotics can do it. And pretty much most Americans have had that.
And, your Doc may not be the best person, since some are old fashioned and think probiotics are snake oil.
For normal use, just a plain live culture yogurt shoudl do. If you liek get one of those special yogurts. I like Yakult drinks myself.
But there’s no reason the Op cant pop down to his local health food store and buy a bottle of some sort of many cultures probiotic pill or supplment. Maybe spend $20.
The other popular food with probiotics is Kefir. It has different buggies than yogurt, despite tasting similar. When I have a stomach bug, or after I’ve had to take antibiotics, I usually buy some (live culture) yogurt and some kefir. It might not do any good, but I enjoy both, so no harm. There’s some evidence that food-based probiotics are better protected from your stomach acid, and healthier and more “ready to go”, and thus more likely to survive to populate your gut than probiotics in a capsule.
If you tend to not maintain healthy bacteria, you probably aren’t eating the right foods to sustain them. (Or have some other issue.) I am by no means an expert, and recommend you google but I’ve heard that inulin (a soluble fiber added to many brands of yogurt) and onions (and related plants) are good for your gut bacteria. All the foods that promote healthy gut bacteria are also implicated in giving you gas, though. So use with discretion.
If you have a good doctor, this is a fine question to bring up with your doctor. If you don’t, you should probably be shopping for a better doctor, since it sounds like you may have other health issues that led to this.
