There was a time when eating bacteria would have sounded unappealing, but that was before the rise of the microbiome and probiotics in the health and wellness scene. Now everyone is wondering what microbes they should be ingesting. But are probiotics really worth the hype?
By now, we’ve all heard the news that we have a lot of microbes living in and on our bodies. These include bacteria as well as other species such as protozoa, fungi, and other microscopic creatures.1 We know that these microbes play an important role in our health and there is some research that suggests that actively keeping this community robust may be crucial for keeping us, the complete homo sapien, healthy too. (For more, read here.) As a result, probiotics have gotten real traction in the health market. But as always, whether or not these products are actually worth their salt is an open question, and the devil is in the details.
Boosting Your Friends, Or Just Adding To The Crowd?
There are many, many different strains of bacteria living in and on our bodies. Some are particularly helpful to us—by aiding digestion, for example—and probiotics are supposed to boost these helpful strains and prevent other, less helpful colonies from outcompeting them. You are basically eating reinforcements for your beneficial microorganisms in order to support their numbers in the overall mix.
The keyword here is beneficial, and before you rush out to the shop, it is important to be keyed in on the fact that not every probiotic is delivering those kinds of microbes. In fact, since we’re talking about hundreds or even thousands of species here, it’s far from clear what even counts as good or bad, or what balance is best. Even more to the point, Scientific American reported that some manufacturers develop probiotics not because they are the best, most helpful strains, but because they are the strains that they can most easily cultivate in large numbers. In short, many probiotics might just be introducing a bunch of bacteria that don’t necessarily have much benefit to your system which would be, in a word, pointless.
For A Microbe, It’s A Long Way From Your Mouth To Your Gut
Another related concern with probiotics is whether or not the microbes that are being introduced can survive the trip from your mouth to your gut. The digestive system has a lot of very strong acids, and many strains won’t survive them. What’s more, some of these little creatures don’t actually live all that well in their supplement form at all, which means it can be a tricky thing to get live cultures all the way from a lab to the consumer before they die.
Maybe It’s Less The Pro And More The Pre
An interesting concept that doesn’t get much play, at least as of yet, is the prebiotic. A lot of our microbes are there because they live in a symbiotic relationship with us. Some bacteria in the gut, for example, help us to break down foods that we can’t digest on our own. Mainly, we’re talking about the carbohydrates found in fibrous plants, which must be processed via fermentation.2 Helping these useful colonies thrive may be as simple as eating a diet rich in the things that they feed on, rather than trying to introduce more of them into the system. Boosting your vegetable intake could do the trick—just more evidence that it is probably better to eat a healthy, balanced diet, than it is to seek out a special supplement.
There Is A Time And A Place
Now that we’ve mostly poo-pooed the idea of probiotics, it’s time to mention that there are times when it is called for, and there are some good products for those times. Most notably, probiotics have been shown to help with some of the unpleasant side effects of antibiotics. There are also some strains of bacteria that have been shown to be beneficial and that some products actually deliver live and in large enough numbers.3 It’s conceivable that these things might in fact help.
That being said, the bottom line is really where it always is. If you are looking for some general ways to improve your health and fitness, the first place to start is with the basics, such as your diet. You might be able to create a fabulous microbiome just by eating more prebiotic foods, like vegetables, or some naturally probiotic foods like yogurt, so start there. If you think you have a legitimate medical situation, then talk to your doctor. They can let you know if a more specific probiotic is right for you. Finally, ask some informed questions. You don’t want to spend money on a pill, powder, or drink full of dead microbes, or live ones that don’t do anything for you.