Probiotics Unfiltered: Beneficial, Bad, Or Just Pointless?

Probiotic supplements are advertised as magic bullets for the health of your microbiome. But they are bullets that can backfire. Or make you waste your money. But do you really need a probiotic?

Why It Matters

The microbiome is a new frontier in the battle for better health. Its thousands of bacterial species, their millions of genes, and their interactions with host biology make the microbiome-host network astronomically complex. And also poorly understood. You should know about that before you buy into the hype.

Your Takeaways:

A thorough understanding of

why the microbiome science is far less clear than what the probiotic manufacturers want you to believe,

what the manufacturers hide from you, and how to read their product labels

How to make an informed decision about probiotic supplementation.

Because, a supplement’s label won’t tell you whether it’s good for you or not. You’ll need to have knowledge.

Probiotics After Antibiotics Might Be A Mistake

Killing Me Softly With Your Probiotic …

could be a song written by your gut’s microbiome. My friend, a successful entrepreneur, asked me how well a 60-dollar probiotic supplement would rescue his gut’s microbiome from the bacterial genocide inflicted upon it by his recent antibiotic drug treatment. I asked him back “Do you know the composition of your microbiome?”

He: “No, of course not; who does?!”

Me: “Do you know the bacterial species and strain in your probiotic?”

He: “It’s on the label, I think. I can’t even pronounce the names, let alone memorize them.”

Me: “When was the last time you employed somebody without knowing what their skill set was?”

He: “Never. I’m not stupid, you know?”

Me: “Well, I’m not so sure about that. You don’t know what bacteria are in your microbiome; you don’t know whether your microbiome needs a supplement in the first place; you don’t know whether there is any scientific evidence to the manufacturer’s claims about the bacteria’s skill set; and you still want to buy that supplement? You better hire the manufacturer’s spin doctor.”

He: “That’s why I am asking you, wiseass.”

I was only half joking about hiring the probiotic makers’ spin doctors. They do a sterling job, having created a $22 billion market with a 14% compound annual growth rate for a product that virtually no customer understands, because

scientists don’t yet know what really works and how

neither you nor your doctor knows your microbiome

nobody can make sense of the product labels

Compare that to a conventional supplement, say, a vitamin pill. The science is clear about the vitamin’s causative role in health; you and your doctor can know whether you need it (if your blood levels are low), and the product labels inform about the content and dosage. So, at least, you can make an informed decision.

Getting you on that same level with the probiotics is the subject of this post’s next sections. I’ll help you understand.

why the microbiome science is far less clear than what the probiotic manufacturers want you to believe,

what the manufacturers hide from you, and how to read their product labels

How to make an informed decision about probiotic supplementation.

Your takeaways will be a more thorough understanding of your microbiome, the benefits and pitfalls of probiotics, and a guide to reading and understanding their product labels.

But first…

Meet Your Microbiome: Trillions of Bacteria Controlling Your Health

Your body plays host to 30–40 trillion bacterial cells (that’s a 4 with 13 zeroes behind), which is slightly more than the number of your own body cells. So a 1:1 ratio for self-to-non-self is a reasonably good estimate.

However, in terms of genetic diversity, the little critters in your gut outperform your body’s genome of roughly 20,000 genes by three orders of magnitude.

The gut’s microbiome alone carries an estimated 22 million different genes; the oral microbiome adds another 22 million.

Knowing that genes and their products interact should give you a first glimpse at what researchers are up against when trying to establish (a) the effects of different microbiome bacteria on your health, and (b) the consequences of throwing a probiotic supplement into that mix: an astronomically complex network.

So, let’s look at the first contention that I made: science is still largely in the dark about whether and how probiotic supplements work.

Microbiome Science: Correlation vs. Causation

What we do know is that the microbiome plays a key role in health and disease, specifically in:

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD)

Obesity and metabolic disorders

Neurological diseases

Cardiovascular disease

Autoimmune diseases

Cancer

However, most of this knowledge has emerged from association studies, rather than causal investigations:

“Despite our increased awareness of the contribution of the microbiota and its metabolites to human health, mechanistic links still need to be elucidated.”

This “elucidation” work is happening right now, as you can see from the exponential growth of published papers about the microbiome.

But from what we know so far, the general enthusiasm for probiotic supplementation should be knocked down a few pegs. Because these supplements don’t address three key functional aspects:

Specificity: Bacteria from the same species can have different (even opposing) effects

Diversity: The more species, the better

Delivery: the supplemented bacteria must arrive intact in the intestine.

Now we are getting to the point where you need to understand what the label of your favorite product has to say about these three aspects.

Probiotics: Which is the Best For Optimal health

Let’s have a look at a typical, very effective probiotic supplement, Brand New Probiotics Specially Designed For The Health Of Your Teeth And Gums called Prodentim

ProdentimProdentim is a unique blend of 3.5 billion probiotic strains and nutrients backed by clinical research.