What Strength Probiotic Should I Take?

What Strength Probiotic Should I Take?

How many CFU should my probiotic have? Is 50BN better than 12BN? Do I need a high strength probiotic? What does CFU mean?

These are some of the most common questions people have about Probiotics, and it’s easy to see why! With so many options on the market today, and many of them using very large concentrations of bacteria, it’s easy to get confused about what the right strength for you is. What many people really want to know is, does a higher strength mean greater results?

In this blog we’re going to dive into the CFU in Probiotics, what it means, how much it should be, and if more means better.

CFU

First let’s talk a bit about CFU. This stands for Colony Forming Units, and is a measure of how many live bacteria there are in your Probiotic. It’s normally measured in Billions, and really anything under 1 BN is considered to be a very low concentration. So, when your label says 12 Billion CFU, it means that in each serving there are 12 Billion live bacteria!

But the question is, does a high concentration really lead to better results? Well, it all depends…

CFU has become a marketing buzzword, and a lot of manufacturers will put a high CFU on the label because they think that the bigger the number, the more likely people are to buy their product, because they assume that a big number means big results. But a lot of the time, that big number doesn’t count for much, and won’t give you the big results you’re after.

It’s important to remember that CFU is a measurement of quantity but not necessarily of quality.

More isn’t always better

How effective your dose is really depends on what bacteria you’re taking, what the studies have shown, and how much we know about the concentrations they really work in. For example, LGG has been studied in strengths as low as 1 million CFU and as high as over 1 Trillion! But one study that compared 1 Billion CFU of LGG to 1 Trillion CFU found that there was no difference in benefits for the people taking them! So in this case, having a big CFU number didn’t mean that there were any greater benefits. It should be noted though that this study was for a specific health condition, so the results were measured based on impact on that condition, not on general gut health. Similarly, there are studies showing great benefit at a concentration of 10 BN CFU of LGG, so we know that at this dose it’s effective, you don’t actually need any more. The truth to remember here is that all Probiotics that have been clinically proven, like the bacteria we use at Better Guts, have a proven effective dose. The dose used in the research is what produced the results, so you don’t need to take more to experience the same!

So when you see a big number on the label, the question to ask is: what CFU has this probiotic been studied in? The truth is that the more clinical research a bacterium has, the more expensive it gets, because it’s got more proof behind it and is therefore more in demand. As two of the most clinically proven microbes in the world, LGG and BB12 come at a significant premium compared to another Lactobacillus of Bifidobacterium that has no human research and therefore no proof it can actually work. If a manufacturer can put 100BN CFU of bacteria in a supplement, and charge a very low price, there’s a very good chance that the bacteria they’ve used has never even been tested in humans, never mind shown any clinical benefit. So, you could be taking 100BN CFU of bacteria that will have no impact on your health at all!

It’s also good to remember that there are a number of other factors as well that will have an effect on what CFU is actually effective. How long the people in the study took them for has a massive impact, as taking a Probiotic for a month or more is the best way to get results, but only taking them for a week will produce far more short-term benefits than long term ones.

What were the researchers trying to find out? This is another great question. If they were looking at how LGG can be used to combat side effects of antibiotics, then they may have used a very large dose. But if you’re only looking to support your gut, and are not taking atibiotics, then you might not need anything near as strong!

Finally, how are the Probiotics delivered? This is important as if the manufacturer has used regular cellulose capsules then they’ll open up in the stomach, releasing the bacteria into the stomach acid. At this point even if the bacteria used are well researched and proven to have benefits, they’ll still get badly damaged by the stomach acid, so in this case a high CFU number wouldn’t count for much!

So what do I need to look for in my Probiotic?

The upshot here is, a high CFU does not automatically mean a high benefit. In fact, sometimes that CFU number can be totally meaningless if the bacteria used aren’t the best ones! Sometimes the best CFU is actually around 10 or 12BN, and upping it to 100BN won’t make a difference.

So when you want to take a probiotic, make sure to look out for the strain of bacteria used, and how much research it has. This will be easy to find out as any manufacturer using a good strain will shout it from the rooftops on their website! If you’re still not sure, google it! A clinically proven strain will have a lot of research behind it that you can see so you know what you’re getting. This ensures you get something that’s been tested in humans and shown to have a real benefit.

Next make sure that the bacteria is in a good delivery system such as HPMC capsules. That high CFU doesn’t mean anything if the bacteria never make it past the stomach!

Probiotics can be amazingly effective in helping people to build a solid gut and robust gut health. But when it comes to concentration, more isn’t always better! Make sure your Probiotic has clinically proven bacteria, like LGG or BB12, and that those bacteria are in a concentration that matches the science, not the marketing. If you do that, you know you’ll have a product that can really pack a punch!

References:

-              Basu S, Paul DK, Ganguly S, Chatterjee M, Chandra PK. Efficacy of high-dose Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG in controlling acute watery diarrhea in Indian children: a randomized controlled trial. J Clin Gastroenterol. 2009 Mar;43(3):208-13. doi: 10.1097/MCG.0b013e31815a5780. PMID: 18813028.

-              Eskesen D, Jespersen L, Michelsen B, Whorwell PJ, Müller-Lissner S, Morberg CM. Effect of the probiotic strain Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis, BB-12®, on defecation frequency in healthy subjects with low defecation frequency and abdominal discomfort: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group trial. Br J Nutr. 2015 Nov 28;114(10):1638-46. doi: 10.1017/S0007114515003347. Epub 2015 Sep 18. PMID: 26382580; PMCID: PMC4657032.