lassesen 6:12 am on February 6, 2017  

What is the ideal probiotic for CFS / IBS / FM patients?

I have yet to find the magical ideal — I do know the characteristics that it should have.

  • Human sourced with evidence of taking up residency.
  • Does not produce histamine (implicated in a subset of CFS), ideally converts histamine to other chemicals
  • Does not produce d-lactic acid (implicated in a subset of CFS), ideally converts d-lactic acid aggressively
    1. Best documented to date is Miyarisan
  • Resistant to many antibiotics
  • Effective against Candida
  • Encourages microbiome diversity
  • Create toxins against bad bacteria strains but not their good cousins
  • Produces B12
    • Best documented is L.Reuteri — but human strains produce histamines and lactic acid also!
  • Produces chemicals that are anticoagulants
    • “Strong acidification and coagulation activities of Lactic acid bacteria strains were recorded.” [2009] i.e. Lactobacillus in general encourages coagulation! There are exceptions

Problem with most commercial probiotics

  • The source is never identified (i.e. a chicken strain is very unlikely to take up residency)
  • The strain is rarely identified, i.e.
    • Lactobacillus Casei — is a family
    • Lactobacillus Casei Shirota — is the strain
  • Often the family is incorrect (especially for Bifidobacteria) if no strain is given
  • There is no independent certification agency for the content of probiotics
  • Even with strains that have PubMed studies published, only a few answers to the above questions are found. The rest is guessing!
  • Often health professional will make up answers about it being “high quality” etc and there is zero evidence based research supporting the benefits they claim.