Is Your Probiotic Effective? Try This Simple Home Test!

As I write this post, I have just wrapped up the North American Plant-Based Nutrition Healthcare Conference in Naples, Florida.

It was a jam-packed {amazing} three days of lectures from the top experts in nutrition medicine.

Neil Barnard, MD, Thomas Campell II, MD, Scott Stoll, MD, William Li, MD, Michael Klaper, MD, Michael Greger, MD, Susan Blum, MD and renowned surgeon Caldwell Esselstyn, MD were among the speakers. They all are such a wealth of knowledge & inspiration and I look forward to sharing their ground-breaking research with you in upcoming posts!

The information below was shared by Michael Klaper, MD who presented a fabulous lecture on plant-based nutrition and the gastrointestinal system. So, here is what you need to know about your probiotic!

A good probiotic product has between 3 and 15 BILLION organisms per dose. (This is expressed as CFU’s)

It is very important to be sure that the acidophilus product you’re paying for and ingesting really contains live, beneficial bacteria. That is, the organisms may have been quite viable when they left the factory, but if they were stored in an unrefrigerated warehouse and/or shipped on an unrefrigerated truck, by the time they get to the shelf of your neighborhood health food store, it may be dead, white powder. So, how do you tell?

YOU can determine the “vitality” of your acidophilus product with this simple kitchen “experiment!”

You will need:

2 liquid containers (plastic cups or shallow bowls. Just make sure they are similar in size and shape.)
1 cup of soy milk or regular milk
1-2 sample probiotic pills from your bottle.

Instructions:
Pour 1/2 cup of soy or regular milk in each container.
Split open your pill(s) and sprinkle the contents into ONE of the containers. Mix it well.
Leave on the counter over night or roughly 8-10 hour to check the results.

*When you examine the bowls in the morning, the milky contents should not look the same. Since Lactobacillus acidophilus is the bacteria that curdles milk, there should be signs of bacterial activity in the bowl containing the acidophilus. You should see either (a) lumps of curdled soymilk, or (b) a film of yogurt, or (c) bubbles of carbon dioxide, and if you put your nose near the milk, it should smell like sour milk.

If both bowls look the same, let them sit out on the counter one more night. The next morning, when you pour the contents of both bowls down the sink, if the physical characteristics of the white liquids appear to be the same, you have a non-viable product and should get a fresh supply, a different brand, or your money back.

What about Yogurt?

Standard, commercial yogurt is pasteurized to kill bacteria before it is sold, so it is useless as a probiotic source. The “cultured” or “bacteria-fortified” yogurt products have a few million organisms, at best. Thus, you would need to consume dozens of tubs of yogurt to produce any beneficial effect. Why consume all the dairy protein and sugar inherent in these products when all you really want is the beneficial organisms you can purchase purely in a good probiotic product?

When should you take a probiotic?

Probiotics are best consumed one hour before meals or two hours after eating. The rationale for this is because you want to have as many live bacteria as possible pass through the stomach into the small intestine. When you eat a meal, your stomach fills up with hydrochloric acid which would kill most of the beneficial organisms. So, to “sneak” the bacteria through the acid vat of your stomach, it is wise to ingest the acidophilus prior to eating, before the stomach fills up with acid – or well after it has emptied.

Why should we take a probiotic?

Since modern life – with its steady stream of chlorinated drinking water, alcoholic beverages, antibiotic-laced foods, etc. – often presents an intensive assault on our normal intestinal flora, everyone could probably benefit from a “freshening up” of their intestinal bacteria with a brief one to two-week course of acidophilus, several times per year. Certainly, after a course of medically-prescribed antibiotic therapy, the healthy balance of bacteria should be re-created in the intestine by consuming an acidophilus preparation for two to four weeks after the last dose is taken. It is okay to take the probiotic while you are taking the antibiotic, just space them out in time – that is, if you take the antibiotic mid-day, take the probiotic in the morning and/or evening.

How do you store probiotics?

Probiotics are more likely to retain their potency when kept in the refrigerator, though not all brands require this. If there is any question about the potency of the product you have purchased – test it! Try to consume the entire product within a few weeks of purchase, so that it does not lose its potency in the refrigerator or on the shelf. You can learn more from Michael Klaper, MD at www.doctorklaper.com

Do you take a probiotic? Leave me a comment. I would love to hear from you!