In this educational video, Dr. A, an integrative and naturopathic practitioner with over 30 years of experience, provides a comprehensive overview of probiotic supplements. He explains what probiotics are, how they differ from antibiotics, and how humans acquire beneficial bacteria at birth and through diet. The discussion covers prebiotic foods that nourish existing gut flora, the major bacterial families (Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium), and the distinction between maintenance blends and strain‑specific therapeutic formulations for issues such as gas, bloating, and chronic diarrhea. Dr. A emphasizes the importance of probiotic viability, describing shelf‑stable versus refrigerated/freezer products and the role of viability testing. He advises on proper timing of probiotic intake relative to antibiotics and outlines why some people experience digestive upset when taking probiotics—highlighting microbial “turf wars,” dysbiosis, and conditions like SIBO or SIFO that may require professional evaluation. Throughout, he references a comprehensive research paper and a continuing‑education webinar for clinicians. The video concludes with a call to action for viewers to subscribe, share, and stay informed about evidence‑based gut health strategies.
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So if you're taking probiotics and they're, you know, they're a good source and they're, you know, Lactobacillus strains, Bifidobacter strains, et cetera, and you're still having a lot of digestive upset, you might want to look into seeing somebody who does. Welcome to my channel. I'm Dr. A, and I've been doing research and teaching in the integrative and naturopathic medical communities for over 30 years now. And I've been seeing patients for a long time. I use this channel to answer questions. And so today I want to answer one that's really common, relates to some other content that we did a while back. And it's generally about the use and clinical efficacy, et cetera, of probiotic supplements, et cetera. So let's get into that and just break it down. First thing that I'll say is we'll put a link in the description down below to a really wide-reaching, very well-done research paper that gets into a lot of aspects of probiotics all in one paper. If you want to really dig and look into, you know, the use in food science and use in other parts of medicine and all of this stuff, it's just really wonderful. And I thought that'd be a really nice one. You can get it free online and take a look at. So when we think about probiotics, if there's something pro, then there might be something anti, right? So an antibiotic is going to kill bacteria, generally speaking, and probiotics are, generally speaking, the bacteria that we call the good bacteria that live in our gut and actually elsewhere on our body. So probiotics are part of our natural way of maintaining our health, our immune balance, our digestive function, all of That sort of thing. Where do probiotics come from in the first place? Well, we are inoculated with probiotics in our digestive tract and elsewhere when we are born. We get them from the food that we eat, and they come in basically through mostly anything going in through our mouth. Now, there's a balance that goes on. And so if we start out life, especially, and we have, say, a need for a lot of antibiotics, right when we're born, let's say there's an infection or something like that. Then that's going to slow down the initial takeoff of the probiotics in our system. And that actually can be associated with adverse outcomes in the child going forward. There's research that looks at, they have this stacking kind of scoring mechanism for newborns. If, you know, if they're born by C-section, that doesn't help. If they had antibiotics in the first so much time, that doesn't help, et cetera, et cetera. So when we're thinking about probiotics, yes, they, they're with us all the time. Now you probably have heard And you can certainly look this up. I'm not going to go too much into this, but there are foods that are what are called prebiotic foods. Prebiotic foods are the things that we would normally eat in a human diet that would also help to engender more growth of the good beneficial human flora, the good bacteria in the GI tract. So you can look up prebiotic type foods. Now, some of these are things you might imagine like fermented foods or foods that maybe contain a probiotic like yogurt and Stuff like that. But prebiotic foods are often things that also provide what we would call a food source, a substrate for the good bacteria to grow on. So prebiotics are another natural way we eat them and the probiotic bacteria can grow. Now, generally speaking, what would be benefits of probiotics? So we think of things like good, well-running digestion and absorption of nutrients. Definitely, 100%. The good bacteria, good flora balance, very connected with that. The other thing though is the operation of the GI tract immune system. GI immunity is very supported by proper biome balance, proper good bacteria in the GI tract, and your GI tract immune system has crosstalk with your systemic immune system. That becomes very, very important there. Also, in the last few decades, we've found out that proper probiotic balance is anti-many diseases, and also it helps actually with central nervous system balance and mood. And there's a number of reasons for But it's just one of the other benefits and go along. Now, people will often say, well, I get confused when I go and you look at probiotic supplements. There's all these different kinds and things. And so when we think about probiotics, we need to be somewhat species specific. So we're humans and we should probably look at the things that do the most to help humans keep our balance because, you know, the microflora balance in another species of creature is good for them, but might not be the same as what we have going on. So the 2 big bacterial families that we want to look at would be Lactobacillus family and Bifidobacter family. Those are the 2 major groups. Now, there's others, but there's major groups there. Now, you've heard probably of Lactobacillus acidophilus. That's a real common one that, you know, some of the original probiotic supplements were Lactobacillus acidophilus. Well, now you see there's all these other families of Lactobacillus subspecies, you know, Lactobacillus rhamnosus and, you know, reuteri and all these other ones that are Now, some people would say, well, why is there like this therapeutic probiotic that's more for, you know, let's say gas, bloating, and diarrhea, and it's one type of Lactobacillus? And then, you know, my general probiotic supplement has, you know, 3, 4, or 5 kinds of Lactobacillus in it. Well, that's because you can both use them for maintenance, which would be like a mixed Lactobacillus families, you know, a bunch of them, and then Bifidobacter families. And that's good for maintenance. Or you might pick 1 or 2 that have been shown to have very therapeutic effects, say for chronic diarrhea or for gas and bloating or whatever the other symptom is. And that's why there'll be symptomatic ones and then kind of chronic support ones. Now, it's important to remember that, you know, these are, at least you hope, living, you know, bacteria that are going to be good for you because they're part of your good flora, but they don't live forever. So that means a couple of things. Quick interruption from the regular video. If you are a healthcare practitioner and you have an interest in this topic, we're going to put a link in the description below to my CE website and specifically The webinar that is about this topic. We'll see you over there. Thanks. From a supplemental point of view, there is benefit to, of course, having the live culture go in so you can help to repopulate. And, you know, it's not always that all of the, you know, billions of lacto and bifido that go in there are going to stay alive and help you repopulate, but they do a number of things. And even after they die, there are some other cell components that they help out with. So it's not all is lost if some of them are dead or some die when they go in. But the other The other thing is more of just a technical point in regard to taking probiotics, and that's they should be as alive as possible when you take them if you're just doing them as a general supportive supplement. So what makes them more likely to be alive? Well, you'll find probiotics nowadays, some are stabilized so they can be shelf stable. There's always a medium in which the probiotic is, you know, kept, whether it's in a powder capsule or something like that, to keep it as viable as possible. And the medium sometimes is stabilized for shelf stability. And others you'll see in the refrigerator. And many years ago, it used to be extremely crucial for the stability of the probiotic to keep it cold because obviously these bacteria— now you think about the inside of your GI tract where they live, that milieu in there is, you know, 98 to 100 degrees once you're inside your GI tract. So that's fine, but you wouldn't want to keep the probiotics at 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside of your GI tract because they would not have enough food and the other components to maintain life for very long. So it's fine nowadays because of the media that they're kept in. If it says it's shelf stable, usually say on the label or something, or maybe the facts that come with it on their website, they'll say they've done testing. This is a really good thing in a probiotic company, and they have X percent viability on the shelf at 3 months or however many days they're looking at. So you want to have some kind of viability studies that show that it's doing that. Now, why would some be maybe in the fridge or even the freezer? Well, the refrigeration just slows the metabolism of the bacteria down and extends their lifespan. So even if I have a shelf-stable product, but I'm going to have it at the house and use it, if I, for instance, purchase 2 bottles, right, I'm going to put the one I'm not using into the refrigerator or even into the freezer to slow the metabolism of the little bacteria down so that when I go to use the second bottle, I have extended its shelf life. So you don't always have to have them from the refrigerator. The ones in the refrigerator are gonna have a slower metabolism depending on the temperature of the rest of the shelf product, and that is gonna be generally helpful to extend their life, et cetera. Now, another question that comes up a lot is, what about antibiotics? I, I got an infection and I had to take antibiotics. My, you know, provider said, well, don't worry about taking probiotics till after you take your antibiotics because the antibiotics Take a whole week off your probiotic and then take a whole bunch at the end. Now you gotta take some afterwards, probiotics, after you're done with your antibiotic, but it's still better to take them during at, you know, a different time. Don't take 'em with your antibiotics, take 'em later in the day and you don't get as far behind. Now some people will say, well, I tried probiotics and I got a lot of digestive upset, and that's not uncommon. Bunch of reasons for that. One reason is that your internal microbiome, so the bacteria and fungus and viruses are growing in your GI tract, are so outta whack that you You put the good ones in there and they actually have sort of a war, a turf war that goes on. So a bit of upset stomach, gas, bloating, that sort of thing is not uncommon, especially if you've had maybe a lot of antibiotic treatment and other stuff like that. The other thing though that can be, if it goes on longer, is you might have a bacterial or fungal overgrowth syndrome. So you've heard of SIBO maybe, or SIFO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, small intestinal fungal overgrowth. Well, those Those things, if you have those going on, especially if you don't know it, and then you take a bunch of probiotics, you can have a lot of digestive upset too, because that turf war I was just talking about goes on at an even higher level when you have SIBO, SIFO, et cetera. So if you're taking probiotics and they're, you know, they're a good source and they're, you know, lactobacillus strains, bifidobacter strains, et cetera, and you're still having a lot of digestive upset, you might want to look into seeing somebody who does digestive medicine and can work you up for bacterial overgrowth, dysbiosis, those sorts of things. So as I mentioned, I'm going to put a link down below in the description about a paper. It goes to a full text of the paper that is really good. And it gets into the many, many uses of probiotics in medicine and food science. And I think there's even agricultural science in there. It gets into the different species, the different families of probiotics, and gets into a whole bunch of other things as it goes along. It is a really wonderful reference you can take a look at. And it goes way deeper than what we've been able to go here. Well, thank you for all those questions about probiotics. I hope I hit most of the questions and answers here. I want to really thank you all for listening. I want to thank you guys for subscribing. The community's grown like wildfire this last year, and what we want to do is keep providing good ground floor, well looked after clinical medical information. Like, share, subscribe, and do notifications. Thank you so much. I'll see you guys on the next video.
