Probiotics potency is measured in CFU (Colony Forming Units). Simply stated, how many good bacteria are you getting per dosage? They can be purchased in a wide and often confusing array of dosages ranging for one billion CFU to two hundred billion CFU. From 1 to 200 billion, that is a very wide dosage range. It is no wonder people do not know what they should do. Here is my take on the dosage.

First, are you using them for daily maintenance?  I describe maintenance as “I generally feel pretty good and just want to stay that way”, if this statement describes you than I have found between 1 billion and 15 billion each day to be an adequate dosage. Most experts believe that around 2 billion of total consumption daily is perfect for optimum  benefits.

Second, are you currently having gastrointestinal issues or you currently using or coming off of an antibiotic regimen? If this is the case I would recommend a considerably higher dosage. Usually between 15 billion and 50 billion each day until you feel back to normal. At that point it is suggested to stay on a lower maintenance dose of between 1 billion and 15 billion for a few months until you have built up your active colonies sufficiently to assure good digestion into the future.

Third, do you have continuous and severe gastrointestinal issues? If this is your situation than you should opt for a very high dosage probiotics that contains between 50 and 200 billion colony forming units per dose.  I would suggest continuing with this high dose for a couple of weeks or until an improvement is noticed. After this stage I would continue on a moderate dose pretty much forever. A moderate dosage would be between 15 billion and 50 billion CFU daily.

The final question is will I you have to take probiotics forever?  This answer is not simple. It depends on you. Most people seem to do well once thy have established natural active colonies within their digestive tracts, meaning that the probiotics that you have taken have established themselves and are now naturally regenerating inside the intestines. This is the best scenario, but for some people it seems that that the probiotics are not able to reproduce in enough numbers to alleviate the need to replenish this supply through dietary supplementation.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Probiotics are the friendly natural bacteria that live within the digestive track of all humans. These friendly bacteria are needed to break down the food we eat. When we lived and ate on the farm probiotics were plentiful in our natural diets, but with all the processed foods we eat today much of these good bacteria are eliminated from our diets.  And every time we use any type of prescription antibiotics these probiotics in our system are killed off by the prescribed antibiotics. Many good doctors and good pharmacist recommend replenishing your probiotics after the use of any antibiotics. When purchasing a probiotic the refrigerated products are much more accurately dosed than the non-refrigerated products. I would also focus in on a product with at least 5 billion activity per dosage.

Digestive enzymes break down the food we eat. Without digestive enzymes we would die. It is believed by many people that we have a limited amount of natural digestive enzymes at birth and once they are used up we can no longer producer any more. Like probiotics, when we ate whole and raw foods generations ago we replenished our enzyme reserve continuously, but today we get very little naturally occurring enzymes in out diet. If you purchase an enzyme product make sure you get an enzyme complex. This means an enzyme product that has enzymes for digestion of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.

I have seen vast improvements in almost all kinds of digestive problems when people commit to supplementing daily with both probiotics and digestive enzymes. This is not an immediate cure, so give it a good month to see dramatic benefits.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites