Probiotics: with meals after all?

[Guest guest]

The prevailing weight of conventional wisdom seems to be that

probiotics are best taken without food in order to reduce the

fraction of the organisms killed by gastric juices, and that among

the available meal-free times, right before bed is the best of the

best, since the supine position will supposedly slow the organisms'

passage through the gut and therefore increase their rate of implantation.

Recent experience, however, suggests that there might be more to the

story. Historically, I haven't responded particularly well to Primal

Defense. It's never stopped diarrhea, and heavy dosing sometimes

caused sharp pains somewhere in my abdomen. It also never seemed to

do much for my digestion. For that matter, most probiotics made no

dramatic difference to me, even when I took them upon rising, between

meals AND right before going to bed, and I've tried a lot, including

but not limited to Primal Defense, Flora Balance, various Natren

supplements, Custom Probiotics' CP-1 formulation as well as

individual strains of acidophilus, rhamnosus, salivarius, plantarum,

and bifidum, from them and other sources, not to mention many

fermented foods, including sauerkraut, kimchee, kefir, yoghurt, and

various plain fermented vegetables.

I'm certainly not suggesting that nothing ever made any difference,

but the difference usually wasn't great and it was never

reliable. For example, Flora Balance had a dramatic effect on a

couple occasions, did nothing on many more, and actually seemed to

make things worse once or twice.

Recently I started taking Threelac, and that made a small but

definite difference, at least for awhile. Unfortunately it's

absurdly expensive ($60 per box) because of the nature of its

marketing, and I'm not entirely happy with the fillers either. As

Suze has noted, the " lemon juice powder " tastes awfully sweet, and

who knows what the heck they mean by " fiber " and " refined yeast

powder " , both of which could be disasters. It definitely has some

interesting and promising strains, though -- Coagulans, Subtilis and

Enterococcus Faecalis -- and there's little question that it helps at

least some people.

However, the most dramatic probiotic-derived improvement to my

digestion came more recently and almost by chance, when my mom gave

me a bottle of Caucasus kefir capsules. I first tried them in the

usual way -- right before bed -- but within a couple days I developed

some persistent and sharp abdominal pain, something that's happened

to me before when trying supplements containing Saccharomyces

Boulardii, so I put the bottle aside. That might've been that,

except that a couple weeks later, I decided for some reason or other

to try taking some capsules with meals, and like magic, my digestion

improved substantially. I stopped, things went back to normal, I

started again, the improvement returned, I stopped and it went away,

I started again and it came back, so I continued taking kefir

capsules with meals until I finished the bottle. Interestingly, no

sharp pain developed. I just felt better and kept knocking out

stools of stone, if you'll pardon the image, and this happened

despite the fact that I take a lot of supplemental HCl with my meals.

This was both good news and bad, since kefir capsules run $25 for a

bottle of 90, and I seemed to require at least 3 or 4 per meal, if

not several more, to notice an effect. Even at just 8 caps per day,

that winds up being even more expensive than a 60-dose box of

Threelac at just 2 doses per day. The obvious response would be to

try eating kefir, but kefir -- including homemade kefir cultured with

real honest-to-goodness grains and the best available raw grass-fed

milk and cream -- never had much of a positive effect on my

digestion. In fact, to avoid lactose difficulties I had to culture

kefir for so long that it turned into a nasty vinegary punishment

rather than a fermented treat.

So what to do? Since I couldn't swing a few bottles of kefir

capsules, I decided to try other probiotics I had lying

around. First stop: Primal Defense. And lo and behold, much the

same effect developed with five or so tablets per meal, also without

any resulting abdominal pain. I'm now nearing the bottle of Primal

Defense, so I'll soon be trying some other probiotics, but the clear

suggestion of this experience is that some people might do much

better to take their probiotics with food.

-

[Guest guest]

,

> any resulting abdominal pain. I'm now nearing the bottle of Primal

> Defense, so I'll soon be trying some other probiotics, but the clear

> suggestion of this experience is that some people might do much

> better to take their probiotics with food.

That is an awesome story, seriously. Good job sticking with different

usages and paying attention to the results!