Are Probiotic Drinks Actually Any Good For Us?

This subject of probiotic drinks and their benefits to our digestive health is a contentious one. The theory that drinking or eating probiotic supplements can help enhance your internal gut flora and aid in more effective digestion is highly controversial among the scientific community and no matter how many studies you read that support the claims, there are an equal number refuting them.
Most people associate the word bacteria with disease and infection but this is not always the case. Our digestive system houses millions of bacteria which are essential for a variety of functions such as the digestion and absorption of nutrients, the synthesis of vitamins, the immune function of the intestines and the adequate growth of cells in the colon. Provided there is a healthy population of ‘good’ bacteria in the gut, the population of harmful bacteria can be kept at bay and poor digestion and disease can be avoided.

Probiotic supplements, usually sold as yoghurts or dairy based drinks, claim to enhance your gut flora with well-known good bacteria, such as bifidobacterium and lactobacillus, which allegedly improve your digestion and enhance your gut’s ‘natural defences’. But do they work and are they worth their outrageous price tag? Personally, I haven’t a clue and neither it appears has the bulk of the scientific community. This is one misconception science seems unable to prove conclusively one way or another. When one group of digestive health boffins produce research pronouncing probiotic drinks useless, another group contradicts by producing research proving they are effective.

The main issue debated in the efficacy of probiotic supplements is whether, once ingested, they are able to survive as they pass through the digestive tract. Research against supplemental bacteria argues that it is impossible for beneficial amounts to survive the journey through gastric and bile acids, as well as various digestive enzymes, before they reach the gut to do their job. One study highlighted by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), proved that not all strains of bacteria used in probiotic supplements survive through the entire digestive system, although at least one strain in each of the products tested survived beyond the stomach. On this basis, it could be argued that even if one strain survived, probiotic products must surely, to a degree, be beneficial.

You could spend days ploughing through the research and still be none the wiser when it comes to proving whether probiotics are effective, but to give you some food for thought, a study commissioned by the BBC in the series, The Truth About Food, discovered something very interesting. In a small-scale study, two groups had their gut flora analysed and were then placed on two separate eating plans. One was fed a pre-biotic diet, rich in foods known to encourage the growth of the good bacteria already present in the gut, such as bananas, garlic and leeks. The other group was placed on a normal diet plus foods high in probiotic cultures such as yoghurt. At the end of the test each group’s gut flora was re-analysed to see which diet produced the largest increase in bacteria. Although it is a relatively small amount in terms of bacteria, the group fed the pre-biotic foods displayed a 133 million increase in gut flora compared to a negligible increase for the probiotic group. As always you could pick holes in this study such as the small number of people tested and the short period of time the test was performed. However, it certainly makes sense that helping the body produce more of what it already has is far superior to gulping down expensive food supplements.

Perhaps the most compelling study into the benefits of probiotics was published by the British Medical Journal into the effect they might have in reducing sickness associated with the hospital ‘superbug’ Clostridium difficile. The study involved 135 patients from different hospitals. All subjects were over 50 and randomly spilt into two groups. One was given a probiotic yoghurt drink and the other provided with a culture-free milkshake. Each patient was made to drink their preparation twice a day while they were following a course of antibiotics and continued to drink it for one week at the end of their medication. The study showed that of the 113 patients contacted after the study, none of the group on the probiotic drink developed Clostridium difficile associated diarrhoea, compared to 17% of the placebo group.

Studies and research into probiotic drinks and foods and how they benefit our digestive health will continue and it’s hardly surprising. With the industry worth an estimated at £135 million in the UK alone there is a general consensus that every time a report categorically proves probiotics are as useful as a chocolate teapot, scientists are paid a tidy sum to produce a study to counter the claim. Don’t you just love commercialism?