Shelf Life and CFU – How Long Do Your Probiotics Last?
Have you ever wondered if it makes any difference how you store your probiotics? How long do they last on the shelf? Does it make a difference if you put them in the fridge? And if they sit on the shelf for a long time, are they still good, or have they lost some potency?
As we talked about in one of our other articles, probiotics in the UK are treated as food supplements, which means that just like all food, they have to have a use by date on them. But, that date doesn’t mean they’ll work to their full potential before that, it just means the product is still safe to consume before that. So how do you know that your product is still just as potent as the day you bought it? Bacteria are living creatures, and they can die. If they die before you take them then it’s all been a waste of time!
In this article we’re going to look at how to store probiotics, what can affect their shelf life and viability, and how we measure their strength in the first place. We’ll also look at how BetterGuts products are structured to overcome these issues for precision supplements you can rely on.
CFU – What is it?
You will have seen the term CFU written on your probiotic bottle, and might be wondering what it means. Well, CFU stands for Colony Forming Units. Essentially, this measures the concentration of the bacteria in the supplement. We can’t do it by weight as different batches of bacteria will have different concentrations, so 1g of one will have a different number of microbes to 1g of another. For this reason we use CFU, that way you know exactly what’s in there.
Normally you’ll see CFU measured in billions, so your label may say 1BN CFU on it. Generally, 1BN is not a very large amount of one specific type of bacteria. On the other hand 10-15BN is thought to be fairly high concentration. It’s worth thinking, if you’re buying a probiotic that’s a blend of different bacteria, how much there is of each in there. The label might say 20BN CFU supplement, but if you divid that by the 10-12 bacteria in there, how much are you actually getting? It’s for that reason that at BetterGuts we use 12BN CFU of one strain of bacteria, keeping it simple and the concentration high so we can make sure our supplements can make a real impact.
The most important thing to ask though is this, is that CFU to the end of shelf life? A lot of probiotic manufacturers will test the CFU of the final product once it comes off the manufacturing line, and leave it at that. That means that the CFU number on your bottle is just how many bacteria were in there when the product was made. But how many have survived? Has it been a while since that supplement was made? The truth is, survivability is a real thing to consider when it comes to the probiotics you take! It’s not impossible that if the bacteria aren’t stored right some of them can die off, reducing the effectiveness of the supplement. So, let’s look at a few of the things that can impact that, and how we can mitigate them.
Moisture – Keep it dry!
You may have noticed that most probiotics supplements will say on the packaging ‘store in a cool, dry place’, there is a reason for that!
Probiotic supplements are manufactured in a very dry state. Essentially the bacteria themselves are dried out to the point that they don’t have enough water for basic chemistry to happen, so they can’t eat or reproduce. In this state they become dormant, in other words they ‘go to sleep’, waiting for the moment that there’s enough water again for them to wake back up. The idea is that they stay asleep until you take them, at which point they rehydrate from the moisture in your gut, wake up, and kick back into action ready to do their work!
But what happens if moisture gets into the bottle before then? Well, what happens is the bacteria start to wake up. The thing is it’s unusual for the contents of the bottle to get ‘wet’, they might just be stored in a damp place. The issue here is that there might be just enough water to wake the bacteria up, but not enough for them to wake up fully and become active. This partial waking is actually pretty bad for them on a cellular level, damaging their cell integrity, as often they can wake up and then go back to sleep over and over, and many of the bacteria can die! The upshot is that if your supplements have been getting damp a good portion of the bacteria might be dead, so if it says 10BN CFU on the label, you might only be getting half that. That moisture doesn’t have to be high either, even the damp in the air from a humid climate can be enough to cause issues.
It’s for this reason that many supplement manufacturers will include a little sachet of silica gel in their bottles, the idea being to help soak up any moisture that gets in. This definitely helps, as the sachet will absorb water from its immediate surroundings, but storage is the main fixer here. Unless of course you have specially designed packaging…
BetterGuts gets around this issue with special bottles. If you look inside your BetterGuts bottle you’ll see a thick layer on the inside of a special beige material, this is a purpose-built desiccant layer. Essentially this whole layer absorbs water from the air, ensuring that if any humidity does get into the bottle (for example when you open it), then the whole wall of the bottle can soak that humidity up quickly, preventing it from ever having a chance of waking up the bacteria. This is much better than a sachet of silica as the sachet can only absorb so much, and it’ll only absorb from what’s immediately around it. With our bottles the whole bottle is the sachet, so moisture never has a chance to do any damage, and the bacteria are kept dormant and ready for action.
Heat – Bacteria Like It Cool
Another important point to think about is the temperature. Bacteria aren’t massively sensitive, but excessively high temperatures can be a real issue for how long they can survive.
We all know that high temperatures can kill bacteria, that’s why people used to boil their drinking water after all, but we’re talking more about high room temperatures here. Think about the warmth of storing a bottle next to a radiator, or above a cooker. The issue is that warm temperatures speed everything up, including how fast the bacteria in the bottle can degrade. Storing your probiotics somewhere very warm can cause them to start waking up, their little cell membranes can become damaged, and this can reduce their numbers and drop that CFU count.
It’s also worth thinking about temperature changes. If the temperature is going up and down a lot this can cause the bacteria to wake up, go back to sleep, and then wake up again, over and over. This can damage them as every time they wake up it takes some of their resources.
This effect varies from bacteria to bacteria, some are more susceptible than others, to the point that some probiotics actually require you to keep them in the fridge! At BetterGuts we don’t recommend that with our products, our bacteria are shelf stable at room temperature, and a fridge is a very damp place, so putting them there may actually do more harm than good.
The thing is heat and moisture often come together, for example humid climates, or storing your bottle next to a kettle that produces steam or in a steamy kitchen. If the supplement is exposed to both of these things, there’s a very good chance there’ll be a real drop in the number of live bacteria in there, and that has a real impact on what it can do for you! So it’s important to make sure that you keep those bottles in the right place.
Where’s the best place to store it then?
Taking into account that both moisture and temperature can be an issue, it’s best to store your supplement somewhere dry and where the temperature tends to stay the same. A kitchen cupboard is a good option, as often these are dry since they’re enclosed spaces, and the temperature inside stays pretty constant. Another good choice might be on a bedroom cabinet where again, the temperature is fairly constant, and there’s little chance of humidity. Bathrooms are not the best idea due to the moisture, and kitchens are only good if the bottles are kept in a cupboard or enclosed space somewhere.
Always have a look at your bottle too, the manufacturer will tell you the best way to store your product, and the best place to keep it, so it’s worth following their instructions.
Another very good practice is to pick a product that has been tested to be shelf stable. That means the bacteria have been shown in a study to survive storage as long as the shelf life of the product lasts, in similar conditions to the inside of the bottle. If you’ve got a bacteria with high survivability, plus a decent level of moisture prevention, then you’ve got a good long-term product.
At BetterGuts it was extremely important to us that our bacteria reach people’s guts alive and ready to help! That’s why we use delayed release capsules, we’ll cover those in a different article though. To this end our bacteria are all proven to be shelf stable, so they’ll happily stay asleep until you need them. We don’t cut corners with keeping them dry either, no small silica sachet, but instead a purpose-built bottle designed to absorb any moisture that makes it in, keeping the bacteria bone dry, and ensuring that when the label says 12BN CFU per serving, then 12BN CFU is what you get!
