Probiotics are “good” bacteria and they’ve been consumed, in yogurt and other products, for hundreds of years in Europe and Asia to prevent and treat a variety of gastrointestinal ailments. Their popularity in the US is growing as dietary supplements designed to restore a healthful balance between good and bad bacteria in the gut. Restoring this balance can be especially important while you’re taking antibiotics, which kill off good as well as bad bacteria, leaving many people with cramps and diarrhea.
Probiotics are classified as dietary supplements, which are not approved before marketing by the US Food and Drug Administration.
“Probiotics definitely help with acute diarrhea,” said Dr. Sherwood Gorbach, an infectious disease specialist at Tufts University School of Medicine who, with his colleague, Barry Goldin, a biochemist, developed Culturelle, which contains the bacterium Lactobacillus GG.. Gorbach is upfront about his financial ties to Culturelle. “There is a conflict of interest here,” he said. Still, more than 250 studies have shown LGG effective for gastrointestinal and allergy problems.
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health, is now funding a study using an Italian product, VSL#3, for fatty liver disease at Johns Hopkins. The lead investigator on that study, Dr. Steven Solga, a gastroenterologist, said he believes probiotics may also prove useful for allergies, asthma, eczema, inflammatory bowel disease and other problems.
Probiotics are classified as dietary supplements, which are not approved before marketing by the US Food and Drug Administration.
If you buy probiotic supplements, look for those containing at least 1 billion to 10 billion CFUs, or colony forming units, enough to have an effect, according to the May issue of the Harvard Women’s Health Watch. Goldin of Tufts suggests looking for strains containing Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. These include L. acidophilus, L. bulgaricus, L. reuteri and L. casei and B. longum.
But buyer beware – probiotics are classified as dietary supplements, which are not approved before marketing by the US Food and Drug Administration, meaning you can’t be sure what’s really in the products.
If you prefer to get probiotics from yogurt, make sure the label says “live” or “active” cultures.