81–90 of 95 posts
PSA: If a probiotic is on the shelf, not in a cooler, it's probably not worth buying. The best companies certify the count of organisms at time of manufacture , but no counts are guaranteed at the shelf. Probiotics are living organisms and ought to be refrigerated for max lifespan. You can get refrigerated probiotic supps at a place like Whole Foods. Source: I used to work in the industry.
I used to turn my nose up at it, but I got some branching out at a beer bar that tasted pretty good (0.5% ABV so you'd puke from too much liquid before getting drunk). It seemed more of a breakfast drink so I had a few ounces every morning. Most regular I've been in my life. That said, the "evidence" presented in the article should not be considered due to the lack of controls (just look at the variance between day -4 and day -1). Both this comment and the article are anecdotal.
But kombucha is a lot cheaper than manufactured probiotics, refrigerated, and the drink is acidic so the bacteria in the drink should already be well suited to the stomach pH (1-3 vs 2.5-3.5 kombucha).
I would love to see this same analysis with a gut probiotic! I am never convinced if I'm wasting my money, which strains are best, should I do refrigerated or shelf-stable, etc.
As far as I am aware, fiber has infinitely superior research behind it with far more drastic effects. Just take fiber if you're worried about gut health imo.
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Anecdata/placebo/whatever: I use BioGaia's Gastrus tablets and they increase my quality of life noticeably, and I can tell when I've been off them for a while. I got refrigerated deliveries of probiotic yoghurt drinks for a while previously and in addition to the faff, didn't notice as good results.
Additional Anecdata: I head about BioGaia's Gastrus tablets here on HN a couple of years ago and they have dramatically improved my wife's quality of life as well. She suffered from significant GI problems. We bought a pack of the BioGaia tablets based on an anecdote here. Within about 3 weeks her year-long GI problems were gone. She discontinued the tablets and the GI issues stayed away. About 18 months later, after…
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No night brain, just a good splice on my part after editing that sentence down :). stavros has a great rewrite already, but an even more succinct one for just the particular snippet could be: "even shelf-stable probiotics should not be kept above room temperature".
"room temperature" has a whole lot of variation without even thinking about the extremes of population location. :(
Hope that helps!
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I never denied any of that. Read my comment again, more carefully.
The very first line of your comment: > PSA: If a probiotic is on the shelf, not in a cooler, it's probably not worth buying. is exactly what I was responding to, along with your one word response "Yes" to that applying equally to all bacterial strains, which is also untrue.
If a probiotic is on the shelf, not in a cooler, it's probably not worth buying
Strains that only survive when refrigerated are maybe probably a higher count
There are probably strains that are better but can't be freeze dried
There are absolutely shelf stable probiotics that are worth buying, especially if you don't have access to refrigerated stuffEarlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I am aware, fiber has infinitely superior research behind it with far more drastic effects. Just take fiber if you're worried about gut health imo.
I agree, but if one has ever taken an antibiotic then they should replace the bacteria that they lost? Strong antibiotics completely destroy the gut biome
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Isn't methanol a strong poison? I do not believe that any probiotic or native strains produce it. Chemically the problem with ethanol is that it's too close to methanol.
From Wikipedia: ”Small amounts of methanol are present in normal, healthy human individuals. One study found a mean of 4.5 ppm in the exhaled breath of test subjects.[19] The mean endogenous methanol in humans of 0.45 g/d may be metabolized from pectin found in fruit; one kilogram of apple produces up to 1.4 g of pectin (0.6 g of methanol.)[20]” ”Ingestion of as little as 3.16 grams of methanol can cause irreversible…
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No night brain, just a good splice on my part after editing that sentence down :). stavros has a great rewrite already, but an even more succinct one for just the particular snippet could be: "even shelf-stable probiotics should not be kept above room temperature".
"room temperature" has a whole lot of variation without even thinking about the extremes of population location. :(
No way I could find a place this cold during Rio de Janeiro summer.
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"room temperature" has a whole lot of variation without even thinking about the extremes of population location. :(
They gave it as a defined term with a pdf copy of https://www.goodrx.com/drugs/medication-basics/which-is-the-... describing the ranges - I just neglected to include all of that detail in my comment :). Another example of why it's great to discuss with your doctor instead of advice from forum comments! Googling around, apparently these values are standardized for pharmacology in the US by the USP, other areas may hav…