What’s the difference in probiotics? This topic can be debated all over the place, but it is safe to say that not all types of probiotics are the same.
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Both types of probiotics may start alive and both types may administer benefits. But how they do so is a
bit different. (This is the position of our experts).
Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium type strains (while still beneficial) won’t recondition the gut like true probiotics will because they are targeting specific benefits.
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For example, the B. longum 1714 strain in our Quiet Serenity product is targeted at biological stress and helping maintain normal cortisol levels. While it does that it will not address broad range gut benefits.
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Common probiotics are more like targeted strains shown to address specific issues. These strains mostly die (though that is still good for the gut and confers a lot of benefits) and don’t survive the digestive tract very well (temperature, bile salts, acid, etc.) but offer gut health benefits similar to “ghost probiotics.” (“Paraprobiotic/ghost probiotics/inactivated probiotics: non-viable microbial cells [(intact or broken] or crude cell extracts which when administered (orally or topically) in adequate amounts, confer a benefit to the human or animal consumer.”) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.01047/full#) These strains are administered in large quantities to reseed the gut with strains that companies think may be deficient and will be beneficial to the consumer. By no means would I suggest these aren’t good probiotic strains with benefits.
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Bacillus spore strains, S. boulardii, and P. acidilactici type strains do recondition the gut. They are shown
to be antibacterial and antifungal by naturally recognizing what’s good and what’s bad so that they can
drive out the bad and not the good. We consider these strains to act more like gut management: “…a
conjunction of multiple pathways, ranging from improvement of gut barrier function, pathogen
competitive exclusion, production of antimicrobial peptides, immune modulation, and trophic effects.”
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7344949/).
When bad bacteria and overgrowth is managed away then good bacterium types (in a wide diversity) can flourish without restrictions. This is how microbial balance is achieved.
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These managerial probiotic strains offer a much broader range of benefits, naturally have higher survivability in the digestive tract, and are shown to help with issues like
bacteria imbalances, leaky gut and inflammation (which triggers a lot of health problems).