December 1, 2025 • 17 mins
Many people take probiotics in the hopes that it will help reduce gastrointestinal struggles with excessive gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation and other common complaints. Sometimes they help, sometimes they don’t. But why? Just what are probiotics and how are they created?
In this episode of the Defiant Health podcast, let’s discuss the ups and downs of commercial probiotics, why they are really little more than haphazard collections of microbes assembled without rhyme or reason. Then let’s discuss how you can do better than taking some random commercial probiotic off the shelf.
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@WilliamDavisMD
Blog: WilliamDavisMD.com
Membership website for two-way Zoom group meetings: InnerCircle.DrDavisInfiniteHealth.com
Books:
Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
William Davis, MD (00:06):
Many people take probiotics in the hopes
that it will help reducegastrointestinal struggles with
excessive gas, bloating,diarrhea, constipation, and
other common complaints.
Sometimes they help, sometimesthey don't.
But why?
Just what are probiotics andhow are they created?
(00:27):
In this episode of the DefiantHealth Podcast, let's discuss
the ups and downs of commercialprobiotics, why they are really
little more than haphazardcollections of microbes
assembled without rhyme orreason.
Then let's discuss how you cando better than taking some
random commercial probiotic offthe shelf.
(00:48):
Let's talk for a few minutesabout something that's better
than a probiotic.
Now I know a lot of you rely onprobiotics to rebuild a broken
gastrointestinal microbiome.
Perhaps you have bloating ordiarrhea or have food
intolerances and want to rebuildor restore lost microbes, push
(01:11):
back some of the unhealthy ones.
So one of the tools in yourtoolbox to do so can be a
commercial probiotic.
But let's talk about there arebetter ways to do it than just
taking a commercial probiotic.
So what exactly are probiotics?
Well, they're typically incapsule form, sometimes other
forms like sachets or stickpacks, but they're essentially
(01:32):
powdered or what are calledlyophilized, freeze-dried forms
of microbes.
And they're freeze-dried tokeep them viable and keep them
away from moisture that degradesthem.
And it's typically made of oneor more species of microbes,
typically many species, maybefive, ten, or even more species
of microbes, each of which havebeen chosen by a formulator
(01:56):
because they have been shown tohave some kind of beneficial
effect in mice, perhaps inhumans, or both.
So a typical formulationprocess would be something like
this.
The formulator says, well, Ithink lactobacillus vulgaricus
is good.
Let's throw that in.
I think that Lactobacillusacidophilus is a good microbe
(02:16):
with some evidence forbeneficial effects.
Let's throw that in.
How about some bifidobacteriabifidum?
That's been shown to have someinteresting effects.
Let's throw that in.
And so on.
In other words, the vastmajority of commercial
probiotics, really nothing morethan haphazard, slap-dash
collections of microbes, chosento some degree at random.
(02:40):
And then some number put into acapsule.
Now the capsule, of course,limits the number of microbes
you can fit into a capsule.
You can't fit hundreds ofbillions, there's not enough
room.
So typically, if a companychooses, say to put in ten
species into a capsule, there'susually only a few billion at
most of each species, whichsounds like a lot, but is really
(03:01):
a very small number.
It's looking as if the scienceis telling us that it really
takes more like tens ofbillions, maybe hundreds of
billions, to really have abiologically meaningful effect.
In other words, so forinstance, there's a very
interesting study using a strainof Lactobacillus gaseri.
And this was a study from SouthKorea.
(03:23):
And the comparison was betweenplacebo, one billion counts per
day, and 10 billion counts perday.
And the end point they lookedat was waste circumference.
So of course the placebo showedno change over 90 days, 1
billion per day, no changelikewise, 10 billion, about 3.5
(03:44):
centimeters of about 2 inches ofreduction in waste
circumference with no change indiet, no change in exercise
program.
So very interesting finding,right?
They also did cross-sectionalimaging of the abdomen, and it
showed more than 20 squarecentimeters of reduced abdominal
visceral fat.
Very interesting findings,right?
(04:06):
So that occurred at 10 billionper day.
But what would have happened at50 billion or 100 billion, or
for that matter, 500 billion?
Well, we don't know.
So the people who performedthat study, like my efforts, we
don't have the unlimitedresearch budgets that the
pharmaceutical industry has.
And when you add additionalarms, different dosing arms, it
(04:28):
increases your costsdramatically.
So if that study, let's justsay, costs $150,000 to do, and
you wanted to add a $50 billion,$100 billion, et cetera, arms,
your costs go up into three,four, five hundred thousand
dollars.
And so that's for that reason alot of us have very limited
what we call dose response data.
I tell you that because mostcommercial probiotics have very
(04:52):
low counts of microbes.
So you can't expect them toaccomplish much.
If you're going to war, if thiswas a war going on, and you're
going up against an army of ahundred thousand soldiers, and
you come in with a thousandsoldiers, you're not going to
win, right?
Same thing here.
In order to go against thetrillions of microbes, many
(05:13):
unhealthy species in thedisrupted gastrointestinal
microbiome, you come in withsmall numbers, like a few
hundred million or a fewbillion, you really don't have
much of a chance to have animpact.
So that's a common problem inmost commercial probiotics.
Another pitfall, anotherproblem of commercial probiotics
(05:33):
is that because they're createdhaphazardly, there's no
attention paid to what arecalled collaborative effects or
effects in which microbes workwith each other, typically by
shared metabolites or otherfactors.
In other words, microbes, justlike humans and other creatures,
live in communities and theycooperate or fight against one
(05:54):
another.
Well, if you just throwtogether a bunch of random
microbes, they may or may notcooperate with each other, and
you may not get the kinds ofeffects that you could have had,
say, if you had maybe a half adozen of collaborative or
cooperative species.
Now that's in their defense ofthe people who formulate
probiotics.
A lot of that information hasnot yet been sorted out.
(06:14):
It's only getting started.
And so the current crop ofprobiotics on the shelves right
now don't have not incorporatedthese factors.
So stay tuned.
As the science progresses, thatwill be incorporated and we'll
have better collections ofmicrobes that have shared
effects, that collaborate,cooperate with each other.
(06:35):
Now, there's even someprobiotics that are harmful.
You know, the FDA has a policythat if you include a microbe
that's foreign to humans, thatis, maybe it came from another
mammal, another creature, oreven soil or someplace else,
that it should go through anapproval process.
Unfortunately, themanufacturers who've used some
(06:56):
very unusual microbes, typicallynon-human sourced microbes, as
compared to the ones we've beenusing, which are all
human-sourced, some of thesecompanies have used these
non-human sourced microbes thathave not been scrutinized, not
have not been tested, and Ithink have potential harmful
effects.
Now I can't, I don't want toname those companies because
(07:16):
there's that we live in thelitigious society, but know that
there are products out there,got to be careful, that are
probably harmful.
These are typically productswith lots, with dozens, if not
hundreds, of different speciesof very low counts, with very
unusual names that we want toavoid.
And then lastly, there are agrowing number of gimmicks being
(07:39):
incorporated into probioticsbecause it's a competitive
market.
And because most of theseproducts have nothing special
about them because they're justhaphazard collections of
species, some companies haveresorted to gimmicks.
One of the gimmicks, forinstance, is to encapsulate the
microbes in such a way thatthere's delayed release into the
(07:59):
colon.
Well, if you've been followingmy conversations, you know that
most of the problems in themicrobiome occur in the small
intestine, not the colon.
There can be problems in thecolon too, but a lot of the
problems that arise from themicrobiome are because of the
unwanted species in the smallintestine.
So why would you want a delayrelease of beneficial microbes
(08:21):
into the colon?
You want them to release in thesmall intestine.
So causing delayed release intothe colon is a bad idea, in my
view.
Another gimmick is to rotatemicrobes.
One week or one month you havethis collection of microbes,
another month you have anothercollection.
Well, all right, interestingidea, but it's never been
(08:41):
scrutinized.
There's no evidence that thisis somehow better, but it
typically leads to very costlyproducts.
Then, of course, there are manyclaims, virtually all of which
are marketing claims, notscientific claims.
Because it's very difficultwith the regulatory restrictions
on products to make actualclaims.
(09:02):
In other words, we can't saythings like take this probiotic
and your ulcerative colitis willget better.
That would be the FDA and theFTC, Federal Trade Commission,
would clamp down on that kind ofa claim and close that company
down or close that product down,impose very hefty fines.
So the claims I'm moreconcerned about are marketing
claims, outsized and sometimesmisleading marketing claims.
(09:26):
So beware.
Marketing is not science.
It's just meant to sell yousomething, so be careful.
Now, because of that issue ofvery low microbial counts, it's
one of the reasons why we haveresorted to fermenting microbes,
as typically something calledwe call yogurt.
It's not really yogurt, right?
It looks and smells likeyogurt.
(09:47):
It's just fermented dairy.
Because it smells like yogurt,we call it yogurt.
But we're going to fermenthuman-sourced microbes.
My favorites are, of course,are a strain of lactobacillus
rotori, a strain oflactobacillus gaseri, and the
most recent formula I'm using isuh bacillus subtillis.
I replaced bacillus coagulants.
(10:08):
There's nothing wrong withbacillus coagulants, but it
proved to be somewhat unreliablein generating very high counts
with our fermentation methods.
So I replaced it with a muchmore reliable microbe, bacillus
subtilis.
So these are threelactobacillus rotori,
lactobacillus gastri, bacillussubtillus, that we ferment.
Typically in dairy, though youcan use other things to ferment,
(10:30):
like hummus and salsa and otherthings.
But if we use in dairy, we getvery high counts.
So for instance, if wefermented lactobacillus rotorite
by itself, rotorite doublesevery three hours, so-called
asexual reproduction, everythree hours at human body
temperature.
So we're going to let it double12 times, 36 hours.
(10:52):
When we count the number ofmicrobes in this lactobacillus
rotorite yogurt, we get around300 billion counts per half cup
or 120 milliliter serving.
In other words, we're gettingsuper duper big numbers.
And I believe that's part ofthe reason why we're seeing such
significant biological effects.
And you may have gathered frommy conversations that that
(11:16):
combination of three microbes,lactobacillus rotarite,
lactobacillus gasserite,bacillus subtlis, that I call
SIBO yogurt, or more properlynow we individually ferment them
to get the highest countspossible.
You can co-ferment all three,but we really don't know what
happens to the relative numbersof microbes as they compete with
each other.
(11:36):
My suspicion is bacillus subtletakes over, and who knows, I
don't know, sixth or seventhbatch or so.
So if you do co-ferment themtogether, you want to start over
every few batches so that onemicrobe doesn't become too
dominant.
But regardless, we're going touse those microbes, chosen
specifically because theycolonize the small intestine as
(11:58):
well as the colon and producebacteriocins, natural peptide
antibiotics that are effectivein killing unwanted microbial
species, such as fecal microbialspecies like E.
coli and salmonella andcampylobacter, that very
(12:19):
commonly have overproliferatedin the colon and then ascended
to occupy the 24 feet of smallintestine.
Of course, that's called smallintestinal bacterial overgrowth,
SIBO or SIBO.
And that is a source for hugehealth problems in at least half
(12:40):
the U.S.
population.
You might be experiencing it asbrain effects, depression,
dementia, Parkinson's disease,suicidal thoughts, anxiety.
You might be experiencing it asskin effects, various skin
rashes, rosacea, psoriasis.
You might be experiencing it asjoint pains, muscle aches, like
(13:01):
fibromyalgia, rheumatoidarthritis.
You might be experiencing it asan amplification of heart
disease, like recurrent atrialfibrillation or coronary
disease, coronary athosphroticplaque rupture, heart attack,
sudden cardiac death.
In other words, we have toreconsider virtually all common
chronic human disease in lightof the contribution of SIBO and
(13:25):
the toxic compounds that theydeliver into the bloodstream
that thereby export all theseeffects of the gastrointestinal
microbiome to other parts of thebody.
So taking a haphazardly createdcommercial probiotic will do
virtually nothing for thisprocess.
So for that reason, we chosethose three microbes, ferment
(13:48):
them using extendedfermentation, get super duper
high counts.
This is better than taking ahaphazardly created commercial
probiotic.
And of course, you've beenfound by conversations,
including that my super gut bookor my William DavisMD.com blog
with thousands of blog posts, myDefine Health Podcast, or my
(14:09):
two-way membership website wherewe have these conversations
frequently via Zoom, which isthe inner circle.dr
Davisinfinfinite Health.com, youknow that we go further.
Yes, we do those three microbesas the SIBO yogurt or
equivalent, but we alsoincorporate lots of fermented
foods because the observationsfrom people like doctors Erica
(14:30):
and Justin Sonnenberg fromStanford University who have
shown that fermented foods,kimchi, kombucha, fermented
veggies, sauerkraut, are amongthe most important things you
can do to restore microbes tothe gastro-intestinal tract.
The curious thing about that isthe microbes in the fermented
food, these are species likeLeucunostoc mesenteroides, or
(14:53):
various Petiococcus species andothers.
They themselves really don'ttake up residence, maybe for a
short time, but then you passthem out into the toilet.
So why are they helpful?
Somehow, the consumption of themicrobes in fermented foods
causes beneficial species to becultivated or to proliferate.
(15:13):
So while you get thatPetecoccus or the leuconostoc in
the fermented food, you'll seean increase in beneficial
species like Fecalobacterium,acromansia, clostridium species,
and many others.
So fermented foods, despite nothaving those probiotic species,
but other species causeproliferation of microbes in the
(15:35):
GI tract.
And by the way, the microbesthat proliferate are typically
ones you cannot get and cannotgrow yourself.
Like Fecalobacterium will notgrow as yogurt.
You can't ferment it in food.
So this is an indirect way tocultivate beneficial species.
And of course, we're sure toget fiber sources in our diet,
not brand fiber, like in brandcereal or whole grains.
(15:59):
We're talking about fibers thatnourish microbes.
These are foods like legumes,black beans, white beans, kidney
beans, lima beans, chickpeas,hummus, other root vegetables,
asparagus, brussels sprouts,onions, garlic, shallots, all
the foods that nourish microbesbecause they amplify the effects
(16:21):
of the fermented foods.
The fermented foods trigger theproliferation of those
beneficial species.
The fibers further add to thegrowth of those or proliferation
of those beneficial species.
So this is far better.
Now you can still add aprobiotic, but you can see the
probiotic is kind of like icing.
Maybe it helps, but thishaphazard collection of microbes
(16:43):
that you get in a probiotic isnot the foundation, it's not the
cornerstone of what you shouldbe doing to rebuild a broken,
busted microbiome ruined by yourexposure to antibiotics and
other factors.
So we rebuild the microbiome byreinstilling those microbes
that you've lost that are smallintestine colonizers, bacteria
(17:03):
producers.
We get lots and lots offermented foods, we add fibers.
This is how you take backcontrol.
And then you can add theprobiotic on if you want.
Some commercial probiotics dohave some claims about specific
effects.
You'd add that on.
But don't let the commercialprobiotic be the cornerstone of
your efforts.
Many people take probiotics in the hopes
that it will help reducegastrointestinal struggles with
excessive gas, bloating,diarrhea, constipation, and
other common complaints.
Sometimes they help, sometimesthey don't.
But why?
Just what are probiotics andhow are they created?
(00:27):
In this episode of the DefiantHealth Podcast, let's discuss
the ups and downs of commercialprobiotics, why they are really
little more than haphazardcollections of microbes
assembled without rhyme orreason.
Then let's discuss how you cando better than taking some
random commercial probiotic offthe shelf.
(00:48):
Let's talk for a few minutesabout something that's better
than a probiotic.
Now I know a lot of you rely onprobiotics to rebuild a broken
gastrointestinal microbiome.
Perhaps you have bloating ordiarrhea or have food
intolerances and want to rebuildor restore lost microbes, push
(01:11):
back some of the unhealthy ones.
So one of the tools in yourtoolbox to do so can be a
commercial probiotic.
But let's talk about there arebetter ways to do it than just
taking a commercial probiotic.
So what exactly are probiotics?
Well, they're typically incapsule form, sometimes other
forms like sachets or stickpacks, but they're essentially
(01:32):
powdered or what are calledlyophilized, freeze-dried forms
of microbes.
And they're freeze-dried tokeep them viable and keep them
away from moisture that degradesthem.
And it's typically made of oneor more species of microbes,
typically many species, maybefive, ten, or even more species
of microbes, each of which havebeen chosen by a formulator
(01:56):
because they have been shown tohave some kind of beneficial
effect in mice, perhaps inhumans, or both.
So a typical formulationprocess would be something like
this.
The formulator says, well, Ithink lactobacillus vulgaricus
is good.
Let's throw that in.
I think that Lactobacillusacidophilus is a good microbe
(02:16):
with some evidence forbeneficial effects.
Let's throw that in.
How about some bifidobacteriabifidum?
That's been shown to have someinteresting effects.
Let's throw that in.
And so on.
In other words, the vastmajority of commercial
probiotics, really nothing morethan haphazard, slap-dash
collections of microbes, chosento some degree at random.
(02:40):
And then some number put into acapsule.
Now the capsule, of course,limits the number of microbes
you can fit into a capsule.
You can't fit hundreds ofbillions, there's not enough
room.
So typically, if a companychooses, say to put in ten
species into a capsule, there'susually only a few billion at
most of each species, whichsounds like a lot, but is really
(03:01):
a very small number.
It's looking as if the scienceis telling us that it really
takes more like tens ofbillions, maybe hundreds of
billions, to really have abiologically meaningful effect.
In other words, so forinstance, there's a very
interesting study using a strainof Lactobacillus gaseri.
And this was a study from SouthKorea.
(03:23):
And the comparison was betweenplacebo, one billion counts per
day, and 10 billion counts perday.
And the end point they lookedat was waste circumference.
So of course the placebo showedno change over 90 days, 1
billion per day, no changelikewise, 10 billion, about 3.5
(03:44):
centimeters of about 2 inches ofreduction in waste
circumference with no change indiet, no change in exercise
program.
So very interesting finding,right?
They also did cross-sectionalimaging of the abdomen, and it
showed more than 20 squarecentimeters of reduced abdominal
visceral fat.
Very interesting findings,right?
(04:06):
So that occurred at 10 billionper day.
But what would have happened at50 billion or 100 billion, or
for that matter, 500 billion?
Well, we don't know.
So the people who performedthat study, like my efforts, we
don't have the unlimitedresearch budgets that the
pharmaceutical industry has.
And when you add additionalarms, different dosing arms, it
(04:28):
increases your costsdramatically.
So if that study, let's justsay, costs $150,000 to do, and
you wanted to add a $50 billion,$100 billion, et cetera, arms,
your costs go up into three,four, five hundred thousand
dollars.
And so that's for that reason alot of us have very limited
what we call dose response data.
I tell you that because mostcommercial probiotics have very
(04:52):
low counts of microbes.
So you can't expect them toaccomplish much.
If you're going to war, if thiswas a war going on, and you're
going up against an army of ahundred thousand soldiers, and
you come in with a thousandsoldiers, you're not going to
win, right?
Same thing here.
In order to go against thetrillions of microbes, many
(05:13):
unhealthy species in thedisrupted gastrointestinal
microbiome, you come in withsmall numbers, like a few
hundred million or a fewbillion, you really don't have
much of a chance to have animpact.
So that's a common problem inmost commercial probiotics.
Another pitfall, anotherproblem of commercial probiotics
(05:33):
is that because they're createdhaphazardly, there's no
attention paid to what arecalled collaborative effects or
effects in which microbes workwith each other, typically by
shared metabolites or otherfactors.
In other words, microbes, justlike humans and other creatures,
live in communities and theycooperate or fight against one
(05:54):
another.
Well, if you just throwtogether a bunch of random
microbes, they may or may notcooperate with each other, and
you may not get the kinds ofeffects that you could have had,
say, if you had maybe a half adozen of collaborative or
cooperative species.
Now that's in their defense ofthe people who formulate
probiotics.
A lot of that information hasnot yet been sorted out.
(06:14):
It's only getting started.
And so the current crop ofprobiotics on the shelves right
now don't have not incorporatedthese factors.
So stay tuned.
As the science progresses, thatwill be incorporated and we'll
have better collections ofmicrobes that have shared
effects, that collaborate,cooperate with each other.
(06:35):
Now, there's even someprobiotics that are harmful.
You know, the FDA has a policythat if you include a microbe
that's foreign to humans, thatis, maybe it came from another
mammal, another creature, oreven soil or someplace else,
that it should go through anapproval process.
Unfortunately, themanufacturers who've used some
(06:56):
very unusual microbes, typicallynon-human sourced microbes, as
compared to the ones we've beenusing, which are all
human-sourced, some of thesecompanies have used these
non-human sourced microbes thathave not been scrutinized, not
have not been tested, and Ithink have potential harmful
effects.
Now I can't, I don't want toname those companies because
(07:16):
there's that we live in thelitigious society, but know that
there are products out there,got to be careful, that are
probably harmful.
These are typically productswith lots, with dozens, if not
hundreds, of different speciesof very low counts, with very
unusual names that we want toavoid.
And then lastly, there are agrowing number of gimmicks being
(07:39):
incorporated into probioticsbecause it's a competitive
market.
And because most of theseproducts have nothing special
about them because they're justhaphazard collections of
species, some companies haveresorted to gimmicks.
One of the gimmicks, forinstance, is to encapsulate the
microbes in such a way thatthere's delayed release into the
(07:59):
colon.
Well, if you've been followingmy conversations, you know that
most of the problems in themicrobiome occur in the small
intestine, not the colon.
There can be problems in thecolon too, but a lot of the
problems that arise from themicrobiome are because of the
unwanted species in the smallintestine.
So why would you want a delayrelease of beneficial microbes
(08:21):
into the colon?
You want them to release in thesmall intestine.
So causing delayed release intothe colon is a bad idea, in my
view.
Another gimmick is to rotatemicrobes.
One week or one month you havethis collection of microbes,
another month you have anothercollection.
Well, all right, interestingidea, but it's never been
(08:41):
scrutinized.
There's no evidence that thisis somehow better, but it
typically leads to very costlyproducts.
Then, of course, there are manyclaims, virtually all of which
are marketing claims, notscientific claims.
Because it's very difficultwith the regulatory restrictions
on products to make actualclaims.
(09:02):
In other words, we can't saythings like take this probiotic
and your ulcerative colitis willget better.
That would be the FDA and theFTC, Federal Trade Commission,
would clamp down on that kind ofa claim and close that company
down or close that product down,impose very hefty fines.
So the claims I'm moreconcerned about are marketing
claims, outsized and sometimesmisleading marketing claims.
(09:26):
So beware.
Marketing is not science.
It's just meant to sell yousomething, so be careful.
Now, because of that issue ofvery low microbial counts, it's
one of the reasons why we haveresorted to fermenting microbes,
as typically something calledwe call yogurt.
It's not really yogurt, right?
It looks and smells likeyogurt.
(09:47):
It's just fermented dairy.
Because it smells like yogurt,we call it yogurt.
But we're going to fermenthuman-sourced microbes.
My favorites are, of course,are a strain of lactobacillus
rotori, a strain oflactobacillus gaseri, and the
most recent formula I'm using isuh bacillus subtillis.
I replaced bacillus coagulants.
(10:08):
There's nothing wrong withbacillus coagulants, but it
proved to be somewhat unreliablein generating very high counts
with our fermentation methods.
So I replaced it with a muchmore reliable microbe, bacillus
subtilis.
So these are threelactobacillus rotori,
lactobacillus gastri, bacillussubtillus, that we ferment.
Typically in dairy, though youcan use other things to ferment,
(10:30):
like hummus and salsa and otherthings.
But if we use in dairy, we getvery high counts.
So for instance, if wefermented lactobacillus rotorite
by itself, rotorite doublesevery three hours, so-called
asexual reproduction, everythree hours at human body
temperature.
So we're going to let it double12 times, 36 hours.
(10:52):
When we count the number ofmicrobes in this lactobacillus
rotorite yogurt, we get around300 billion counts per half cup
or 120 milliliter serving.
In other words, we're gettingsuper duper big numbers.
And I believe that's part ofthe reason why we're seeing such
significant biological effects.
And you may have gathered frommy conversations that that
(11:16):
combination of three microbes,lactobacillus rotarite,
lactobacillus gasserite,bacillus subtlis, that I call
SIBO yogurt, or more properlynow we individually ferment them
to get the highest countspossible.
You can co-ferment all three,but we really don't know what
happens to the relative numbersof microbes as they compete with
each other.
(11:36):
My suspicion is bacillus subtletakes over, and who knows, I
don't know, sixth or seventhbatch or so.
So if you do co-ferment themtogether, you want to start over
every few batches so that onemicrobe doesn't become too
dominant.
But regardless, we're going touse those microbes, chosen
specifically because theycolonize the small intestine as
(11:58):
well as the colon and producebacteriocins, natural peptide
antibiotics that are effectivein killing unwanted microbial
species, such as fecal microbialspecies like E.
coli and salmonella andcampylobacter, that very
(12:19):
commonly have overproliferatedin the colon and then ascended
to occupy the 24 feet of smallintestine.
Of course, that's called smallintestinal bacterial overgrowth,
SIBO or SIBO.
And that is a source for hugehealth problems in at least half
(12:40):
the U.S.
population.
You might be experiencing it asbrain effects, depression,
dementia, Parkinson's disease,suicidal thoughts, anxiety.
You might be experiencing it asskin effects, various skin
rashes, rosacea, psoriasis.
You might be experiencing it asjoint pains, muscle aches, like
(13:01):
fibromyalgia, rheumatoidarthritis.
You might be experiencing it asan amplification of heart
disease, like recurrent atrialfibrillation or coronary
disease, coronary athosphroticplaque rupture, heart attack,
sudden cardiac death.
In other words, we have toreconsider virtually all common
chronic human disease in lightof the contribution of SIBO and
(13:25):
the toxic compounds that theydeliver into the bloodstream
that thereby export all theseeffects of the gastrointestinal
microbiome to other parts of thebody.
So taking a haphazardly createdcommercial probiotic will do
virtually nothing for thisprocess.
So for that reason, we chosethose three microbes, ferment
(13:48):
them using extendedfermentation, get super duper
high counts.
This is better than taking ahaphazardly created commercial
probiotic.
And of course, you've beenfound by conversations,
including that my super gut bookor my William DavisMD.com blog
with thousands of blog posts, myDefine Health Podcast, or my
(14:09):
two-way membership website wherewe have these conversations
frequently via Zoom, which isthe inner circle.dr
Davisinfinfinite Health.com, youknow that we go further.
Yes, we do those three microbesas the SIBO yogurt or
equivalent, but we alsoincorporate lots of fermented
foods because the observationsfrom people like doctors Erica
(14:30):
and Justin Sonnenberg fromStanford University who have
shown that fermented foods,kimchi, kombucha, fermented
veggies, sauerkraut, are amongthe most important things you
can do to restore microbes tothe gastro-intestinal tract.
The curious thing about that isthe microbes in the fermented
food, these are species likeLeucunostoc mesenteroides, or
(14:53):
various Petiococcus species andothers.
They themselves really don'ttake up residence, maybe for a
short time, but then you passthem out into the toilet.
So why are they helpful?
Somehow, the consumption of themicrobes in fermented foods
causes beneficial species to becultivated or to proliferate.
(15:13):
So while you get thatPetecoccus or the leuconostoc in
the fermented food, you'll seean increase in beneficial
species like Fecalobacterium,acromansia, clostridium species,
and many others.
So fermented foods, despite nothaving those probiotic species,
but other species causeproliferation of microbes in the
(15:35):
GI tract.
And by the way, the microbesthat proliferate are typically
ones you cannot get and cannotgrow yourself.
Like Fecalobacterium will notgrow as yogurt.
You can't ferment it in food.
So this is an indirect way tocultivate beneficial species.
And of course, we're sure toget fiber sources in our diet,
not brand fiber, like in brandcereal or whole grains.
(15:59):
We're talking about fibers thatnourish microbes.
These are foods like legumes,black beans, white beans, kidney
beans, lima beans, chickpeas,hummus, other root vegetables,
asparagus, brussels sprouts,onions, garlic, shallots, all
the foods that nourish microbesbecause they amplify the effects
(16:21):
of the fermented foods.
The fermented foods trigger theproliferation of those
beneficial species.
The fibers further add to thegrowth of those or proliferation
of those beneficial species.
So this is far better.
Now you can still add aprobiotic, but you can see the
probiotic is kind of like icing.
Maybe it helps, but thishaphazard collection of microbes
(16:43):
that you get in a probiotic isnot the foundation, it's not the
cornerstone of what you shouldbe doing to rebuild a broken,
busted microbiome ruined by yourexposure to antibiotics and
other factors.
So we rebuild the microbiome byreinstilling those microbes
that you've lost that are smallintestine colonizers, bacteria
(17:03):
producers.
We get lots and lots offermented foods, we add fibers.
This is how you take backcontrol.
And then you can add theprobiotic on if you want.
Some commercial probiotics dohave some claims about specific
effects.
You'd add that on.
But don't let the commercialprobiotic be the cornerstone of
your efforts.
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