# Probiotics may not be good for you.



## A/C in Az (Jan 14, 2019)

An interesting series of articles with research showing probiotics may be harmful in many cases.
BBC - Future - Is it worth taking probiotics after antibiotics?


> The surprising finding was that the group who received the probiotic had the poorest response in terms of their microbiome. They were the slowest group to return to a healthy gut. Even at the end of the study - after five months of monitoring - this group had not yet reached their pre-antibiotic gut health.


There are other links in the story related to their series on probiotics and your health. Definitely worth the time to read.

BBC - Future - The microbes in your body that you couldn't live without


> "People know about live yogurts, but the next stage up which has five times as many microbes is kefir, a Persian soured milk," Spector told me. Other fermented foods like miso soup and kimchi (pickled cabbage) are a delicious feast for your internal lodgers.





> Probiotics, marketed to help boost our gut bacteria, are rarely worth investing in, as there's little evidence the bacteria in them stick around to change your microbiome in the long term.


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## WHALENARD (Feb 21, 2010)

"Newberry’s findings, reviewing 82 studies of nearly 12,000 patients, did find a positive effect of probiotics in helping to reduce the risk of antibiotic-induced diarrhoea. But due to the variation – and sometimes lack of clarity – on which bacterial strains had been used, there was no particular probiotic or cocktail of probiotics that could be pinpointed and recommended as working. "

“That’s what’s so troubling,” says Newberry. “There are a few more studies than when we did the review, but not enough to conclusively say whether probiotics work or not. And not enough to say which ones work.”

I kinda consider articles like this to be junk science and possibly deliberately so. There are thousands of gold standard (double blind placebo) peer published studies on the efficacy of not only consuming live bacteria to your gut flora but foods that healthy gut flora feed on to flourish. It's an interesting and expanding feild of study.


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## A/C in Az (Jan 14, 2019)

You may twist facts, but if you kept reading you would have read


> A recent study by scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel found that even among healthy people, taking probiotics after antibiotics was not harmless. In fact, they hampered the very recovery processes that they are commonly thought to improve.


and


> And the evidence is mounting that taking probiotics when gut health is weak is not such a good idea. Another recent study has found that probiotics don't do any good for young children admitted to hospital for gastroenteritis. In a controlled trial in the US, 886 children with gastroenteritis aged three months to four years were given either a five-day course of probiotics or a placebo.
> The rate of continued moderate to severe gastroenteritis within two weeks was slightly higher (26.1%) in the probiotic group than in the placebo group (24.7%). And there was no difference between the two groups in terms of the duration of diarrhoea or vomiting.


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## WHALENARD (Feb 21, 2010)

I read the article and back read several of the studies used in the article. I'm confident in my post. Introducing factory cultures, which are mainly feeding on sugar in yogurt, to a compromised gut/immune system produces ambiguous data. Imo there is nothing here to draw conclusions on.


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## A/C in Az (Jan 14, 2019)

As stated in the article, the commercially available probiotics are no better for you than yogurt, some worse than yogurt.

The studies involved the use of clinically lab produced probiotics; which aren't available to the general population.

The multitude of studies all came up with the same basic data, probiotics are questionable when using clinical lab prepared doses and are potentially hazardous when bought in the grocery store.


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## Cornfield (Apr 15, 2012)

I've had good luck with novicebiotics, they're a bit cheaper.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Cornfield said:


> I've had good luck with novicebiotics, they're a bit cheaper.


Amateurbiotics have worked well for me. You don't have to pay for them. But stay away from the noobiotics, those are risky.


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## HerrKaLeu (Aug 18, 2017)

Eat healthy (and as natural as possible) food and your gut will have a healthy bio-environment. Eat crap, and it will be crap.


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## milehi (Nov 2, 1997)

I make a home made probiotic drink with acidophilus powder. One teaspoon of powder to a quart of filtered water. Sometimes I'll use fruit like strawberries and kiwis, but I prefer one that I put cabbage, ghost peppers and sea salt in. This last time I also added cayenne. I take a couple sips a couple times a week.

I don't eat crap food, and I avoid carbs and sugar but my beer intake is on the high side.


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## WHALENARD (Feb 21, 2010)

^ I find loading up with 1 species of bacteria makes me constipated. Cabbage is loaded with natural flora, it's been a homeopathic intestinal cure all for millennia.


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## milehi (Nov 2, 1997)

WHALENARD said:


> ^ I find loading up with 1 species of bacteria makes me constipated. Cabbage is loaded with natural flora, it's been a homeopathic intestinal cure all for millennia.


I get a little gassy if I chug too much but it's just my stomach rumbling, so I limit my self to just a couple sips. My mouth is watering right now just thinking of having some.


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