Probiotic Problem #1 – Your Stomach Acid Kills Them

In an exposé, a top U.K. food microbiologist named Glenn Gibson revealed a secret the supplement industry had been hiding for years. “Bacteria, including many probiotics, are likely to be destroyed by stomach acid.”

In fact, a peer-reviewed study discovered the acid in your stomach is so powerful it can dissolve 63% of a razor blade’s mass in less than 24 hours.

If your stomach acid can eat through metal, of course delicate tablets of lab-grown probiotics won’t survive! For a probiotic to work effectively, it needs to be able to reach your small intestine and colon, without being killed by your stomach acid – this is where the bacteria can work their magic and improve your health.

Quick Tip: If your probiotic requires refrigeration, it will definitely not survive a trip through the stomach.

Probiotic Problem #2 - They Forget About Humanity’s Original Probiotic Source

Our modern lifestyles are contributing to increasingly out-of-balance microbiomes.

Most people understand our gut bacteria are out-of-balance because of the modern diet. But have you ever wondered exactly where our ancestors obtained probiotics for the last 20,000 years?

Cavemen weren’t eating Kombucha, Greek Yogurt, and Sauerkraut, after all. It turns out over 98% of our predecessors’ probiotic intake came from just one source: the soil their food was grown in.

Grown foods weren’t washed or processed as carefully as they are today – every time our ancestors ate fruit or vegetables they’d be getting a small dose of SBOs (soil-based organisms), which included powerful probiotics that are better for human health than the majority of lab-grown strains.

That’s largely because these probiotics found in soil are “spore forming,” creating encased spores that can resist stomach acid and heat for safe delivery to the intestines.

Probiotic Problem #3 – More Isn’t Always Better

Supplement companies want to stand out from all their competitors. So what do they do? They increase the dosage. They think “bigger is always better.” But our guts have a delicate balance of bacteria. If a probiotic contains too much of a certain species, it can out-compete the good bacteria in the gut and cause the beneficial strains to die off.

And then, if a person stops taking these high-dose probiotics, more harmful bacteria can take over – creating an even more unhealthy balance than before. Most gastroenterologists (gut doctors) recommend that people take a gut health supplement that contains between 5 Billion and 10 Billion spore-forming bacteria once or twice per day. Probiotics with 30, 50, or even 100 billion CFU will likely do more harm than good.

Eating Out and Other Food Concerns: You usually can't verify the food quality or safety of food when you eat out. Restaurant food is often not stored properly, resulting in exposure to many different bad bacteria.

Probiotic Problem #4 – Pretending All Probiotic Strains Are Equal

Scientists estimate there are between 300 and 1000 completely different species of bacteria living in your gut. Some are beneficial and others are harmful. Most supplement companies just throw in 2 or 3 different species of lactobacillus bacteria into a probiotic and call it a day.

They choose the cheapest probiotics available instead of the bacterial strains that can make the biggest positive impact on your health.

For probiotics to help transform your health, they need to be chosen specifically for the purpose each strain fulfills. They need to complement the good bacteria already in your gut and help out-compete the bad bacteria that can cause indigestion, bloating, yeast infections, and more.