Should You Take a Probiotic?

With all the hubbub around gut health these days, you may be asking yourself, “Should I be taking a probiotic?”  

My answer?

Probably.

But it’s kind of complicated.  

The probiotic craze started when we began learning more about the health benefits of a traditional diet (versus the modern standard American diet). Traditional diets include lots of fruits and vegetables, fish and seafood, unprocessed grains, and fiber with some lean meat and dairy. Importantly, traditional diets also include fermented foods.  

Probiotics in Food

A traditional diet that incorporates fermented foods has been linked to a more diverse gut microbiome which we now know is essential for optimal health. 

We assumed the benefits of fermented food came from the probiotic bacteria they contain but research has shown the fermentation process also enhances foods’ nutritional quality. Specifically, fermentation improves protein quality and increases the bioavailability of different vitamins and minerals like the B vitamins, magnesium, and zinc. It also helps preserve and enhance the effect of antioxidants and polyphenols in food (shown to lower risk of cancer, heart disease, inflammation, diabetes, and more!).

That’s not to say the probiotic bacteria in fermented foods don’t also contribute to the observed health benefits. In fact, the microbes present in fermented foods can help reduce intestinal permeability (leaky gut), improve mental health, lower inflammation, improve our bodies’ stress response, and more.

So, long story short - I definitely recommend including fermented foods in your diet. Sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, yogurt (unsweetened dairy or coconut yogurt), kefir, and miso are some great options.

If you’re not eating fermented foods on a regular basis or you’re looking for a more therapeutic effect (mental health, digestion support, etc.), I suggest adding a probiotic to your supplement regimen.

Probiotic Supplements

There are tons of options for probiotics and each strain has different benefits. That said, there’s not a lot of research on how different strains interact when taken together, how much of the probiotic even survives the stomach’s harsh acid environment, etc.

For that reason, I generally recommend a spore-based probiotic. Spore probiotics contain Bacillus spores that surround themselves with a protective shell. They remain dormant until they arrive in an ideal environment – in this case, our gut. This allows them to survive the high acid environment of our stomach and safely journey through our digestive tract. Once they arrive in our large intestine, they remove their outer shell and get to work “cleaning up” our gut, killing pathogenic bacteria and rebalancing our gut microbiome.

Luckily, there are quite a few brands of spore probiotics on the market now. YouTheory Spore Probiotic, Just Thrive Probiotic, and Microbiome Labs MegaSporeBiotic are a few good ones!