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The various Ultimate Flora brands are excellent. They are expensive and you can get them at whole foods. The trick is to get multi-strain LIVE species. Refrige

The various Ultimate Flora brands are excellent. They are expensive and you can get them at whole foods. The trick is to get multi-strain LIVE species. Refrigeration seems to help. Many probiotics are labeled as "active". I think this means they are dead but the remaining proteins are "active". They'll only last as long as proteins are available. The industry really needs to clarify this stuff. Independent evaluators need to check out their claims. Live strains will reproduce. There are many tricks to get them to survive the stomach acids: imbed them in gelatin or psyllium. Another trick is to prefeed them in airtight, dark bottle so they're growing before you eat them. Just put it in your pocket for a couple of hours. Clinical trials need to be done to firmly establish efficacy; but I've given this concoction to several people and they were very happy with the results. More research needs to be done on which species of fungi, bacteria , and arachea give good results. The gut microbiome is an interdependent environment. Restoring the balance occasionally may benefit lots of folks.

sbierwagen 11y ago
Many probiotics are labeled as "active". I think this means they are dead but the remaining proteins are "active". They'll only last as long as proteins are available. Incorrect. Probiotics are supposed to contain live, active bacteria: the large "CFU" number on the front stands for "colony forming unit": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony-forming_unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony-forming_unit Labdoor (which is advertising-supported) tests probiotics based on how accurate their CFU numbers are: https://labdoor.com/rankings/probiotics https://labdoor.com/rankings/probiotics (These tests, of course, don't say if the probiotic in question is actually good for you or not.) I've taken both General Biotics Equilibrium and (115 strains, 1 billion CFUs, shipped unrefrigerated) and Renew Life Ultimate Flora Extra Care. (10 strains, 50 billion CFUs, refrigerated) If either of them had any effect at all, I didn't notice it.
- tosseraccount 11y ago
  Thanks for the clarification and the link. Not surprising to see Ultimate Flora at the top. I'd bet that a lot of these species die on the shelf. The industry might still benefit from consistently labeling as "live" on the bottle if the probiotics are live. I suspect that not everyone has an imbalance that would benefit the user. A good strategy might be to try various species until something works. An over the counter "23 and me" for gut species genomes assays might help; but that's a few years away.
  - sbierwagen 11y ago
    An over the counter "23 and me" for gut species genomes assays might help; but that's a few years away. Nope, here today. http://ubiome.com/ http://ubiome.com/ Costs $89.
    - tosseraccount 11y ago
      Again. Thanks. Anybody tried this?
      - derekja 11y ago
        yup, not a bad report. I've used American Gut as well, a project from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Concordance between the two results was decent. I'm not sure I got a lot of actionable information from either, though. Certainly not as much of detailed interest as from the 23andme data.

sbierwagen 11y ago

Many probiotics are labeled as "active". I think this means they are dead but the remaining proteins are "active". They'll only last as long as proteins are available. Incorrect. Probiotics are supposed to contain live, active bacteria: the large "CFU" number on the front stands for "colony forming unit": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony-forming_unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony-forming_unit Labdoor (which is advertising-supported) tests probiotics based on how accurate their CFU numbers are: https://labdoor.com/rankings/probiotics https://labdoor.com/rankings/probiotics (These tests, of course, don't say if the probiotic in question is actually good for you or not.) I've taken both General Biotics Equilibrium and (115 strains, 1 billion CFUs, shipped unrefrigerated) and Renew Life Ultimate Flora Extra Care. (10 strains, 50 billion CFUs, refrigerated) If either of them had any effect at all, I didn't notice it.

tosseraccount 11y ago
Thanks for the clarification and the link. Not surprising to see Ultimate Flora at the top. I'd bet that a lot of these species die on the shelf. The industry might still benefit from consistently labeling as "live" on the bottle if the probiotics are live. I suspect that not everyone has an imbalance that would benefit the user. A good strategy might be to try various species until something works. An over the counter "23 and me" for gut species genomes assays might help; but that's a few years away.
- sbierwagen 11y ago
  An over the counter "23 and me" for gut species genomes assays might help; but that's a few years away. Nope, here today. http://ubiome.com/ http://ubiome.com/ Costs $89.
  - tosseraccount 11y ago
    Again. Thanks. Anybody tried this?
    - derekja 11y ago
      yup, not a bad report. I've used American Gut as well, a project from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Concordance between the two results was decent. I'm not sure I got a lot of actionable information from either, though. Certainly not as much of detailed interest as from the 23andme data.