CONCLUSION: So where does this leave someone who wants a really good probiotic?

Once you know the probiotic myths, it is much easier to identify the characteristics of a product with the capacity to produce beneficial effects:

1. A fresh, live product, i.e., not freeze-dried or chemically preserved.
2. The minimum number of live microbes must be guaranteed through the entire shelf life period.
3. A product containing multiple strains of microbes with proven probiotic characteristics
4. A product that contains beneficial metabolites (organic acids, etc.) produced by the probiotic microbes

Only LiveBrew meets all of the criteria set out above. LiveBrew is also the only fresh, live and active multi-strain probiotic product that does not require refrigeration prior to opening while guaranteeing a billion CFU/Lactobacilli in every dose throughout the entire 9-month shelf life.

A popular misconception is that probiotic microbes colonise the gut on a durable/permanent basis. This is simply not true. Probiotic microbes tend to persist in the gut for several days to a week. An exception to this can be bifidobacteria given in early infancy.

There is some limited evidence that these may become part of the gut flora in the infant on a longer-term basis. But for the overwhelming majority of people the persistence of supplemented probiotic microbes in the gut extends out to a maximum of about a week.