Advertisement

Probiotics, such as Flora Source, can ease digestive woes

Share
Special to The Times

I receive a lot of ads in the mail for Flora Source, a probiotic. Will it do everything the ads claim?

PEARL

Wildomar

The product: If our bodies ran by majority rule, we’d all be slaves to bacteria. By some estimates, the average digestive tract contains 750 trillion bacteria -- enough to outnumber the human cells in your entire body by about 7 to 1. Most of those bacteria are on our side: They help us digest our food and build our intestinal immune system, an important defense against not-so-friendly germs.

Advertisement

Flora Source, distributed by Golden Health Products, is just one of many “probiotic” supplements that promise to improve health by boosting the ranks of healthy bacteria. (A similar product, also called “Flora Source,” is distributed by Nutri-Health.) Each capsule of Golden Health’s Flora Source reportedly contains 22 billion living bacterial cells representing 15 species, including 10 strains of lactobacillus and four strains of bifidobacteria. “You’d have to eat gallons of yogurt to get that many cells,” says Mary Faith Hunt, president of Golden Health Products.

A few health food stores carry Flora Source, but Hunt says almost all her customers order the product over the Internet. A six-month supply costs about $100.

The claims: Like nearly every other probiotic on the market, Flora Source promises to ease digestive troubles such as diarrhea, indigestion and bloating. But the claims don’t stop there. According to the Golden Health Products website, Flora Source can “strengthen your immune system,” “guard against colon cancer” and “boost energy and vitality.” The site also says that Flora Source can “protect against osteoporosis and arthritis,” although Hunt says “that’s not really the focus.”

Hunt says customers have reported improvements in a wide range of conditions, including irritable bowel syndrome, skin allergies and toe fungus. In general, she says, customers can expect to start seeing results in about three months.

Bottom line: Probiotic supplements are generally safe and seem to ease some common digestive troubles, says Dr. Michael Camilleri, a gastroenterologist and professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic. After conducting several studies, Camilleri feels that he can “comfortably” recommend probiotic supplements for people with ulcerative colitis, gas and bloating (especially as symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome), and diarrhea caused by antibiotics.

As reported in the journal Gastroenterology Clinics of North America in 2005, there’s also fairly strong evidence that probiotic supplements can increase the activity of the immune system. For women, that extra activity seems to translate to fewer vaginal infections from bacteria and yeast.

Advertisement

Other claims, however, are much more iffy. Apart from a small Dutch study showing that probiotics seem to ease joint pain caused by inflammatory bowel disease, there’s not much evidence that a dose of bacteria can prevent or treat arthritis. Camilleri says the claim that probiotics can prevent osteoporosis is “for the birds.” And though some researchers speculate that probiotics could lower the risk of colon cancer, it’s not enough to say that the jury is still out. On this point and others, the jury on probiotics hasn’t even been convened.

Scientists are still a long way from knowing exactly which strains or combination of strains work best for any given problem. For now, Camilleri recommends products that combine lactobacillus and bifidobacteria. Flora Source certainly fits that bill. So does VSL#3 from VSL Pharmaceuticals, the probiotic that Camilleri used in his studies.

No scientist has ever examined the health benefits of Flora Source, but Hunt says her customers put the product to the test every day. “If you sell something that doesn’t work, you won’t be in business long.”

*

Is there a product you’d like the Healthy Skeptic to examine? E-mail health@latimes.com.

Advertisement