Probiotic Yogurt: Hype or Health?

14 days to regularity?

Television ads for yogurt have always been a bit suspect. Aimed relentlessly at women, they make it seem like yogurt should rank alongside chocolate, sex and shoe shopping when it comes to the female gender. But what is being flogged is not plain-Jane yogurt. Traditional yogurt has never been a big seller in North America, but the food marketers have figured out how to manufacture and market low-fat and no-fat varieties to the hoards of women on endless diet cycles. The result?  Many have been duped into regularly consuming Frankenfood-like concoctions containing aspartame, fillers, stabilizers, conditioners and a host of artificial and “natural” flavors. Yogurt sales have since boomed.

Always needing to be one step ahead of the competition, the food industry players have since been pressured to introduce even more new yogurt-like products. So in 2006, Dannon introduced us to “Activia”. Activia is no mere low-fat yogurt; rather it promises to deliver some digestive health benefits, all backed up by some “scientific research” in aid of the female stomach. Desperate for slim midsections, dieting women have pushed Activia to a billion dollar global brand.

Since Dannon has made such a success of Activia yogurt, all kinds of food manufacturers have jumped on the probiotic bandwagon. We’re going to start seeing it in everything–remember the oat-bran craze?  Probiotic potato chips may not be so far off.  But are the health claims valid? The manufacturers are certainly pushing the legal boundaries by promising heath benefits formerly reserved for dietary supplements. And consumers are being bombarded with faux science in the form of food marketing. Just what is Bifidus Regularis, anyway?

Most probiotic food products frankly aren’t potent enough. Probiotics should contain bacteria similar to the ones naturally found in the stomach. However, the stomach naturally contains 100 trillion bacteria (about 10 single-celled microbes for every cell in the body), comprising about 5,600 separate species (Public Library of Science-Biology journal, Nov 18, 2008). Simple yogurt probiotics can’t compete with those kind of numbers.

Other probiotics aren’t effective, due to the way that they are processed. Yogurt bought in stores is pasteurized, meaning that any active bacteria cultures are killed under the heat of the pasteurization process. Probiotics and other cultures must be added later in a further processing stage, and these bacteria may not be the kind that will thrive in the stomach. They can be transient; never actually colonizing the gut.

Finally, these products are not natural foods — they are more like highly processed desserts. Yogurt should contain nothing but milk ingredients and active culture, but many of these products contain whopping amounts of sugar, fructose, corn starch and a host of chemical additives. Activia yogurt contains anywhere from 12 to 17 grams of sugar in a small 4-oz tub. That’s about the same amount of sugar in an 8oz serving of Gatorade. The sugar can also encourage the growth of pathogenic organisms like candida — something you don’t want.

The health claims of the probiotic yogurt makers have come under some legal fire recently. Last year, a California resident filed a claim against Dannon, suing for financial injury due to deceptive advertising (she felt duped into buying the product). More recently, the European Food and Safety Agency dismissed general health claims for probiotic foods and The European Union put a new law into effect recently stipulating that all medical-sounding health claims must be clinically verified. The result? Just a few days ago, the Danone brand in Europe had its television advertising pulled for its Actimel product, because claims that the product would prevent school-children from getting sick were not verified.

Personally, I don’t rely on processed foods for probiotics. We managed to survive for millions of years as a species long before products like Activia and Actimel were invented. The best way to encourage a healthy and dense microbial community is to avoid processed foods. I particularly stay away from refined carbohydrates such as sugar, white flour and rice, white breads, pasta, and cereals. These products have had their phenols removed (the strong antioxidants found in many plants), but it is the phenols that inhibit the growth of non-probiotic (bad) bacteria while leaving the good bacteria untouched. The fiber in natural vegetables also encourages good gut health.

For a real probiotic boost, one can try cultured vegetables like naturally fermented sauerkraut. Unfortunately, most commercial sauerkraut varieties are pasteurized or contain vinegar which kills live live enzymes and micoflora that your body needs. Homemade is best.

Taking antibiotics will reduce the number and diversity of the bacteria population. In addition to creating the possibility of the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains, over-prescribing antibiotics isn’t doing anybody’s stomach health a favor. In such cases, a therapeutic probiotic boost may be required to restore the proper balance of stomach and intestinal flora. Products such as Bio-K+ are suitable for those needs.

Of course, it may not help women feel like “themsevles”.

Tags: probiotics, yogurt