PROBIDRINK

Additional Information

Non-Freeze Dried Liquid Probiotics

The gastro-intestinal tract’s healthy function relies on the presence of beneficial bacteria. Beneficial bacteria aid in digestion, correct pH balance (acidity), the processing of nutrients and the prevention of the build-up of harmful bacteria. The bacteria in your bowels outnumber the cells in your body by a factor of ten to one. This gut flora has incredible power over the immune system, meaning that the health of the body is largely tied into the health of the gut. This becomes understandable when one looks at the fact that there are over 100 trillion bacteria – about 2 kilograms worth – that line the intestinal tract. Beneficial bacteria (as well as pathogens) are almost completely killed off with the use of antibiotics. Repeated use of antibiotics can virtually eradicate the good bacteria in the gut, allowing bad bacteria and harmful yeasts to take a foot hold in the GI tract and multiply at a high rate. What many people don’t realize, however, is that antibiotics are just a small piece of the puzzle. Our intake of natural bacteria has been seriously hindered over the past half century or more, primarily due to the use of chemical fertilizers and fungicides in farming, and also the use of antibiotics in livestock farming. Where we used to get natural, healthy doses of beneficial bacteria through our food and water, we are now eating foods that have been chemically grown, chemically treated, irradiated, preserved and had everything possible done to them to prevent the growth of bacteria – good and bad. So how do we get the bacteria that our bodies so desperately need for survival?

The word probiotic literally means ‘for life’ and describes the concept that a probiotic encourages the formation of a living colony of specific beneficial bacteria, in this case in the human digestive tract. Today, probiotic means any of the thousands upon thousands of products globally, which have adopted the term. A quick look at the range of probiotic products available on the shelves immediately reveals two segments; liquid products such as yoghurts or drinks, and dry products such as capsules, tablets and sachets.

Dry Products

It is possible to freeze simple organisms under low temperature and pressure in such a way that all the water is removed without damaging the organism itself. This places the bacteria in a state of suspended animation which is well suited to long term storage. Once moisture becomes available to the bacteria, they re-hydrate and a proportion of the bacteria will go on to function and divide again. There are downsides to freeze-drying, however. All the moisture that is part and parcel of each microbe has been removed. Even if they do fully return to their former state with no harm done, nobody has been able to prove how long it takes. If it’s more than an hour or two, the microbes will be past the stomach, through the intestine and in the bowel before they wake up, if not further.

Liquid Products

Liquid products generally contain live bacteria, which are intuitively a good idea, but it’s important that these bacteria once swallowed can reach the gut and colonize to confer a benefit. Live products must also contain a source of nutrition for the bacteria; however, this raises some issues. Firstly, storage and shelf-life can be short for some live products. Secondly, palatability, since probiotic bacteria are not always tasty creatures. Also, an important consideration is competition between bacterial strains within the same live product; they can compete with one another for resources in the bottle. This problem is one reason why it is very difficult to develop a multi-strain live product.

Single-Strain Dry Probiotics

There are those who believe that a single strain of bacteria may be all that is needed to confer benefit; Acidophilus species are a good example, and so there are plenty of producers of single-strain freeze-dried probiotic tablets, capsules and powders. The human gut contains more than 500 different species of bacteria, so to take a single strain in an attempt to hit the bull’s-eye may not always deliver success.

Single Strain Liquid Probiotics

Many liquid probiotic products, particularly the diary-based products containing yoghurt or milk, are single-strain probiotics containing bacteria which thrive on the sugar found in milk; lactose (hence Lactobacillus). These bacteria tend to be strains from the Bifidobacteria or Lactobacilli genera.

Multiple Strain Dry Probiotics

As stated earlier, freeze drying allows for multiple species and strains to be combined in a capsule without fear of competition. Other problems, however, can arise as a result, chief amongst these being time of re-hydration and recovery of function for the bacteria.

Multiple Strain Liquid Probiotics

On paper, these products deliver the best of both worlds; providing several bites at the cherry in one go and overcoming the problems with dry products. However, the devil is in the detail and it is very difficult to deliver a multiple strain live product, which is why they are few and far between.

Probidrink™ are live, multi-strained liquid formulae wherein the probiotic bacteria grow naturally, compete and build resistance to real-world conditions, offering you one of the best probiotics on the market. The majority of probiotics available today contain only one or two species of bacteria, grown as pure cultures and then freeze-dried so that they may be kept alive. It is not a natural process and does not contain the full range of species that microbes usually interact with as a part of their normal life cycle. Moreover, these probiotics are grown in a sterile environment with no competition, and so when they are introduced to the wild and variable ecosystems of the “real world”, their ability to survive is severely impeded. Probidrink™ products are fermented at body-temperature for a minimum of 21 days. In this time, the beneficial bacteria not only form strong consortia (groups) which have adapted to survive in real-world conditions, but have also produced the by-products of fermentation, including vital enzymes and lactic acid, which is a strong sterilizing compound. The manufacturers are clear that focusing on the population counts are not as important as focusing on the fact that the microbes are alive and non-freeze-dried, as well as the diversity of the microbes.