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.
  • Best documented to date is Symbioflor-2
• 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
  • Best documented is Lactobacillus Fermentum ME3
• Effective against Candida
  • Best documented is Lactobacillus Fermentum ME3
• Encourages microbiome diversity
• Create toxins against bad bacteria strains but not their good cousins
  • Best documented is Lactobacillus Fermentum ME3
• 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.