Ugly truth about probiotics

Probiotics have been hailed as the future of health.

Huge breakthroughs in our understanding of how our guts influence health throughout the body, from digestion to our moods and even our defenses against chronic disease.

So there’s a lot of excitement that improving people’s gut health can resolve all manner of health issues that have rocketed in recent decades.

In fact, they may be so effective that they have Big Pharma worried. It’s rumoured they’re trying to get probiotics pulled from shelves and sold as prescription drugs.

Now, I was as excited as anyone when I started reading about the health benefits of probiotics for rebalancing the gut bacteria and triggering a wealth of health benefits.

So you can only imagine my dismay when I dug a little deeper and discovered the current generation of probiotics may not be as effective as claimed.

Many gut health experts have been skeptical that they stay in the gut long enough to release their stored strains. Instead, most of them pass straight through into the toilet bowl.

And, sadly, this was the finding by a team of scientists from Israel.

The good news is you dont have to rely on a cold pressed pill to get a daily dose of probiotics. You can get them from fermented foods instead. Popular probiotics include keffir (a type of yogurt), sauerkrauct (purple colored cabbage), and kimchi (south korean dish).

I’ll admit, fermented foods can be an acquired taste. And they’re not the cheapest. But then neither are highly priced probiotic supplements. And at least with fermented foods, you know they work.