By now we know that gut health is important, playing a vital and complex role in competing with harmful bacteria and performing the many functions necessary throughout our life, including the integration of nutrients and production of vitamins. A poorly functioning digestive tract can greatly interfere with your quality of life and be the source of many health problems.
It’s important to maintain a good balance of your intestinal flora to stay healthy and a good quality probiotic can assist with this. So, what should you look out for when choosing a probiotic?
Here are 4 important boxes to tick when choosing a probiotic:
1. Active bacteria guaranteed up until expiry
When choosing a probiotic, you want to make sure that the bacteria is active and that the product has the bacteria that it claims to have. Make sure that the probiotic is active bacteria up until the expiry date, and not just on manufacture date.
Vivomixx® is guaranteed active bacteria up until expiry and has been verified by a 3rd party company called Consumerlab.
2. High concentration to make a difference
The human digestive system generally contains over 500 different types of bacteria, equivalent to about 100 trillion bacteria. For a probiotic to make a difference in the gut, a high concentration is necessary. The concentration will be marked as CFUs (colony forming units) – this is the number of bacteria. It is suggested that a probiotic needs to be in the billion CFUs to make a difference.
With 8 different strains of bacteria, Vivomixx® is the world's most concentrated probiotic and is available in 450 billion bacteria per sachet, 112 billion bacteria per capsule and 10 billion bacteria per micro-capsule. It works out to be the cheapest probiotic per billion CFUs!
3. Strain specific research is very important
When we look at bacteria, we first need to understand the composition of bacteria. If we look at bacteria, lactobacillus acidophilis DSMxxx for example, it is made up of the genes (Lactobacillis), the species (acidophalus) and the strain (DSMxxx). When it comes to research, strain specific research is important.
Still a little confusing? Let's use an easy example of dogs. The species is a dog, but the strain will be the different breed. All dogs are not the same, the breed gives it different characteristics. This is the same with bacteria - the strain is what makes it different. Therefore, if one probiotic has lactobacillis acidophlilis A, it does not mean that it is the same as lactobacillis acidophilis B.
Therefore, the research is important to identify the characteristics of the strains. If we use the dog example again, a husky and a yorkie have very different characteristics.
4. Do the strains work well together?
Research is important to ensure that the strains work well together.
Vivomixx® was invented by a medical doctor and professor of infectious disease and immunology – Claudio De Simone, MD, PhD. These strains were chosen for their specific individual characteristics and their ability to work closely as a team to perform what single strains or other combinations of strains cannot do.
OSA Pharmaceuticals provide quality products, such as Vivomixx® to the South African market. Vivomixx® ticks all the boxes when it comes to choosing a probiotic. The multi-strain probiotic is well researched (strain specific research) and approved internationally within the gastroenterology field. Vivomixx® is safe for the whole family.
Its formulation has been the subject of more than 70 clinical studies and over 220 original publications. It is also approved by the major international gastroenterology associations.
We know gut health is important, don't mess around when choosing a probiotic. Your gut health is in your own hands. Healthy gut, healthy body!
Information supplied by: OSA Pharmaceutics