Re: Can too many probiotics be harmful?

[Guest guest]

I gave my 151 lb son 150 billion a day of custom probiotics, so you

are dosing over two times as much as I did. I don't know though. I

think he needed that many probiotics for sure. I don't think I was

underdosing. This child had a diet of whoppers and taco bell, so he

really needed the extra support for yeast. He drank a lot of pepsi and

apple cider too, so that is why he needed so many.

[Guest guest]

As per pur DAN! I give my 36 lb 2 year old 200 billion CFU's per day

and my 22 lb 10 month old gets 50 billion. My kids are very yeasty so

they need it. We have had no adverse reactions whatsoeer.

>

> I spoke to our DAN! today, whose opinion I don't often trust, and he

> told me that I was giving my son, who has gut issues, " too much "

> probiotics. We give him about 300 billion cfus of Klaire's detox

> support and about 8 billion cfus of l. acidophilus from Kirkman. He

> said there is research that shows that in the first year of life a

> child's digestive tract develops what is an optimal amount of flora

> for the child, and that by loading later on with so many probiotics,

> you can actually cause more harm than good. He said I should be giving

> about less than half of what I do. Does this make sense? Has anyone

> heard this before? In that first year of life, my thought is that

> heavy metals were wreaking havoc with my kid's gut, so how could

> anything have developed " optimally " ? - especially his gut flora.

>

> Irene

>

[Guest guest]

>

> I spoke to our DAN! today, whose opinion I don't often trust, and he

> told me that I was giving my son, who has gut issues, " too much "

> probiotics.

Well, once my kids and I actually started tolerating probiotics [i

used biotin before this], I gave them 10 billion cells per

dose/capsule. If I give more than 2 of these per day, all of us

complain about headaches, and sometimes we have diarrhea. These are

our " bad bacteria " symptoms, which seems odd that too much good

bacteria causes bad bacteria symptoms, but that is what happens.

We no longer have yeast issues, but I used so much GSE for so many

years, that the good bacteria have been severely depleted. I have

noticed that one 10 billion probiotic per day seems good, and

sometimes two, but more than that always causes problems.

Dana

[Guest guest]

>

> I spoke to our DAN! today, whose opinion I don't often trust, and he

> told me that I was giving my son, who has gut issues, " too much "

> probiotics. We give him about 300 billion cfus of Klaire's detox

> support and about 8 billion cfus of l. acidophilus from Kirkman. He

> said there is research that shows that in the first year of life a

> child's digestive tract develops what is an optimal amount of flora

> for the child, and that by loading later on with so many probiotics,

> you can actually cause more harm than good.

I would ask him for a reference and then read the research

myself. Even if the research seemed well done and relevant to

my case, one study is one study and unless it is very tightly

designed, there are zillions of conclusions it COULD point to.

(You mention one possible reason it might not apply, below --

that is, that there could be significant relevant differences

between the study subjects and your child.)

I would ask about the research thing not just to see if I think

the study implies what he says it does, and is relevant -- but

also just out of curiousity. I've not heard this opinion before

about giving " too much " -- so I'm curious about it.

Reading it would also give me more information from which to

consider the potential negative effects -- are we talking

about that more is " not optimum " according to this theory,

or is it mildly irritating, or is it some kind of serious

temporary digestive problem, or is it highly toxic, or what?

I'd also guess that Kirkman's and Klaire have both read the

research that your doctor read.

best,

Moria

He said I should be giving

> about less than half of what I do. Does this make sense? Has anyone

> heard this before? In that first year of life, my thought is that

> heavy metals were wreaking havoc with my kid's gut, so how could

> anything have developed " optimally " ? - especially his gut flora.

>

> Irene

>

[Guest guest]

I've not seen the study (if you do find it, could you post it please?)

but I did give my son a trillion CFUs a day for quite a long time and

it really helped his gut. We do very little for yeast here (compared

to other asd families, not compared to the rest of the world) and ds is

normally just fine with yeast and bad bacteria.

If our kids actually had " an optimal amount of flora " in their first

year of life, I doubt that most of them would be struggling as much as

they are with their health right now. In fact, I'd go as far as saying

that if you could find more than a couple thousand kids in all of

America with optimal gut flora, I'd be stunned. With the antibiotics

in our food chain, moms who have been on antibiotics and birth control

pills, the lack of cultured food in our diet, the overall poor state of

our immune systems, etc, etc, optimal gut flora is more theoretical

than real :-(

Anita

>

> I spoke to our DAN! today, whose opinion I don't often trust, and he

> told me that I was giving my son, who has gut issues, " too much "

> probiotics. We give him about 300 billion cfus of Klaire's detox

> support and about 8 billion cfus of l. acidophilus from Kirkman. He

> said there is research that shows that in the first year of life a

> child's digestive tract develops what is an optimal amount of flora

> for the child, and that by loading later on with so many probiotics,

> you can actually cause more harm than good. He said I should be giving

> about less than half of what I do. Does this make sense? Has anyone

> heard this before? In that first year of life, my thought is that

> heavy metals were wreaking havoc with my kid's gut, so how could

> anything have developed " optimally " ? - especially his gut flora.

>

> Irene

>

[Guest guest]

Thanks to all for answering my post. I don't know what to think. I

felt the high dose probiotics were for quite a while, very helpful.

However, Dana mentions that in her house it caused diarrhea, when she

went too high, and my son has been having very loose bowels for a few

weeks. We are lowering the mag and vit c we give to see if that

helps, but if it doesn't, I am toying with the idea of lowering the

probiotics from 300 billion cfus to 150 or 200 billion, to see if the

diarrhea abates. I will contact our DAN! to see if I can get him to

give me the source of the study he mentions and I will post it here.

Irene