Sep 28, 2018
Author: John Winkler, MD
Educational Pearls:
- Probiotics are bacteria that are ingested to promote gut health but recent research casts doubt on their effectiveness.
- Recent study suggests that most probiotics that are ingested are killed by stomach acid. Those that remain are not very healthy and are outcompeted by the normal gut flora.
- Probiotics should not be given as a one-size-fits-all treatment.
References:
Zmora N, Zilberman-Schapira G, Suez J, Mor U,
Dori-Bachash M, Bashiardes S, Kotler E, Zur M, Regev-Lehavi D, Brik
RB, Federici S, Cohen Y, Linevsky R, Rothschild D, Moor AE,
Ben-Moshe S, Harmelin A, Itzkovitz S, Maharshak N, Shibolet O,
Shapiro H, Pevsner-Fischer M, Sharon I, Halpern Z, Segal E, Elinav
E. Personalized Gut Mucosal Colonization
Resistance to Empiric Probiotics Is Associated with Unique Host and
Microbiome Features. Cell. 2018 Sep 6;174(6):1388-1405.e21. doi:
10.1016/j.cell.2018.08.041. PubMed PMID:
30193112.