Ten Things You Didn’t know about Probiotics

There are a number of common myths and misconceptions about probiotics. While these generally benefit the manufacturer or seller of a product with “probiotic” written on the label, they often do not help a person reading the label to decide if they are looking at a credible and effective microbial tool to help them achieve their health and wellness goals.

Myth # 1

The freeze-dried fallacy, AKA, The viable = alive fallacy

Most people are familiar with freeze-dried “probiotic” products that come in a pill or sachet form. These products often feature very large numbers (many billions) and many strains/species of microbes listed on the label.

Freeze-drying is a very effective way of storing microbial cultures in a -80C freezer so they may be used by a laboratory at some later date. When a freeze-dried culture is used in a laboratory, the process of rehydration and returning the microbes to activity is optimized to treat the fragile, desiccated cells as carefully and gently as possible.

The environment found in the gut is very different and far harsher than the ideal conditions found in a laboratory petri dish and incubator. Dried, damaged cells have no defence against the rigours of the upper GI tract. Stomach acid and bile salt assault the microbes very soon after they are taken. Some manufacturers attempt to protect their microbes with various enteric coatings in the hope they can get past these early challenges, but even if these measures are successful, the teeming microbial throng in the intestine creates a very challenging environment for the freeze-dried microbes and the overwhelming majority are simply digested.

Another problem with freeze-dried cultures is the lag time that occurs between ingestion and their return (if at all) to active metabolism and reproduction. This means that even if a small number of the freeze-dried microbes do survive the challenges of the GI tract and are able to return to active life, they have done so lower in the GI tract and thus can only provide significant effects to that segment of the GI tract.

Freeze-drying is a valid method of long-term preservation for laboratory storage and later use. But freeze-dried cultures are no more a ready-to-use product than a sack of flour is a chocolate cake.

Myth #2

All CFU are alike

Microbial numbers are generally expressed in terms of Colony Forming Units (CFU).

A sample of a microbial product/culture is put through a series of dilutions with a bit of each dilution smeared on a petri dish with an appropriate nutrient. These are then incubated for a specified period of time. They are then examined by a technician and the colonies, the dots of microbes that appear are counted. After applying some statistics, a rough approximation of the number of microbes present may be calculated.

On many probiotic products, this number is reported as if it is very specific and precise. It is nothing of the sort. At best, serial dilutions can tell you what order of magnitude of microbes were present but if the same test is run on the same sample, the CFU ‘count’ can vary.

One reason for this variability is the fact that a colony, a dot on a petri dish that is counted as a single unit, can represent very different things. It is possible for a single cell to develop into a colony, but it is also possible that a colony developed from a clump of cells.

Some products, especially fresh, live products, tend to produce large clumps of cells rather than individual cells swimming about on their own. Thus, a CFU count from a fresh product could represent something very different to a CFU count of a freeze-dried powder that does not contain large clumps of microbes. It is important to keep this in mind when reading labels with enormous CFU counts on them.

Myth #3

Probiotic microbes have a hard time getting past the stomach alive

It is true that the damaged, desiccated cells found in a freeze-dried culture are very susceptible to being further damaged or destroyed by stomach acid and bile salt as they transit through the upper GI tract. But this is not the case for properly selected live and active microbes. Live and active microbes that have an intact cell wall that can protect themselves from these challenges. When selecting probiotic microbes for inclusion in a product, they are exposed to acid and bile salt and only those microbes that can handle it are chosen.

Myth #4

Big numbers on the label mean big numbers when taken

The overwhelming majority of products that say “probiotic” on the label only provide a count for the number of microbes present AT THE TIME OF MANUFACTURE. This is a very different number than the count at the time of use! Most ‘probiotic’ products contain a small fraction of the number counted at the time of manufacture by the time they are used by the consumer. Very, very few manufacturers guarantee the number of microbes in their product throughout the entire shelf life period.

Combine this with the fact that freeze-dried cultures of any number face considerable challenges (see Myth #3) when taken, and one can see that the very big numbers on the label of a freeze-dried product can easily fall below the level of being able to produce a probiotic effect.

Myth #5

Having some live microbes in a product makes it a probiotic.

The World Health Organization defines a probiotic as: “live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host.” This definition has been amended to say that the microbes must be of strains shown to have probiotic characteristics.

Thus it is not enough to say that a product has some live microbes and is therefore a probiotic, it must be shown that there are sufficient numbers of microbes with proven probiotic characteristics before a product can be accurately described as a probiotic.

Myth #6

All “probiotic” microbes are equal

There are a broad range of microbes touted as being “probiotic”. Lactobacilli and bifidobacteria are common in many ‘traditional’ probiotics, but one may find many novel products claiming to be probiotic with other types of microbes listed on the label.

Many processed foods now claim to be probiotic. These products are manufactured with spore forming (Bacillus) microbes. A Bacillus microbe can cease activity and form an endospore which are very tough and can endure certain manufacturing processes. The problem with spore-forming microbes is this very capacity to form a spore. When challenged, rather than fighting to the finish, they simply retreat into their spore form. This is not an option for ‘traditional’ probiotic microbes like lactobacilli.

Spore forming microbes also have a slightly higher risk than non-spore formers. In the very rare event that a probiotic microbe causes an infection (something that generally only happens in individuals who are severely immunocompromised) a spore-forming microbe can be harder to kill with pharmaceutical antibiotics than properly selected non-spore formers.

Myth #7

Yogurt from the store is a good source of probiotic microbes.

Fresh yogurt that you make yourself and eat fresh can be a good source of probiotic microbes. But when the lactose in the milk runs out, the microbial numbers drop rapidly. In addition, post fermentation treatment/processing of commercial yogurt can dramatically reduce numbers. A store-bought yogurt may be delicious and nutritious, but it is unlikely to have high enough numbers of probiotic microbes to produce a probiotic effect.

Myth #8

Multi-strain just means different freeze-dried bacteria mixed together

Most freeze-dried probiotic products have a seemingly impressive list of microbes listed on the label. The assertion is then made that the product is ‘multi-strain’. While this is true in a very limited sense, it is really sidestepping the whole reason why a consumer would want a multi-strain product in the first place.

In the real world, microbes are never alone, they never live only among their own species/strain. Microbes are always in vast communities with friends and competitors engaged in an eternal struggle for survival. Very early in the development of probiotics, it was observed that cultures containing several different microbes tended to outperform cultures containing only a single strain. These observations were generally on live active cultures, not just blends of various powdered freeze-dried bacteria.

A live, active culture containing well-selected probiotic microbes that get along well and produce an abundant complex of beneficial metabolites can exert a far greater effect than single-strain cultures. Another way to say this is that a functioning and complex ecology containing high numbers of probiotic microbes is a more powerful probiotic.

Myth #9

Probiotic microbes colonise the gut

A popular misconception is that probiotic microbes colonise the gut on a durable/permanent basis. This is simply not true. Probiotic microbes tend to persist in the gut for several days to a week. An exception to this can be bifidobacteria given in early infancy. There is some limited evidence that these may become part of the gut flora in the infant on a longer-term basis. But for the overwhelming majority of people, the persistence of supplemented probiotic microbes in the gut extends out to a maximum of about a week.

Myth #10

Probiotic microbes for people must be sourced from people.

It is true that many probiotic microbes have been obtained from human sources. But many very important and beneficial probiotic microbes used by humans have come from animal sources, from traditional fermented foods, plant origins, and elsewhere.

The important factors in selecting a microbe for human use are:

1. Proven probiotic characteristics.

2. A capacity to survive the rigours of the upper GI tract (stomach acid & bile).

3. No haemolytic characteristics.

4. No unwanted antibiotic resistance.

CONCLUSION: So where does this leave someone who wants a really good probiotic?

Once you know the probiotic myths, it is much easier to identify the characteristics of a product with the capacity to produce beneficial effects:

1. A fresh, live product, i.e., not freeze-dried or chemically preserved.
2. The minimum number of live microbes must be guaranteed through the entire shelf life period.
3. A product containing multiple strains of microbes with proven probiotic characteristics
4. A product that contains beneficial metabolites (organic acids, etc.) produced by the probiotic microbes

LiveBrew meets all of the criteria set out above. LiveBrew is also the only fresh, live and active multi-strain probiotic product that does not require refrigeration prior to opening while guaranteeing a billion CFU/Lactobacilli in every dose throughout the entire shelf life period.