27 Jun How to Make Sure Your Probiotic is Working

It’s not easy to sift through the mountains of information when it comes to choosing a quality probiotic. The probiotic market is growing rapidly, and is expected to reach over $65 billion in the next 5 years. This is because more and more people are taking control of their health, and insisting on preventative measures rather than sick care. Even the medical and nursing fields are recognizing the contribution of probiotics. But how do we know which probiotic is a quality supplement? How can you make sure your probiotic is working?

Probiotics are alive, but they are fragile little creatures and have a short lifespan, making many of the probiotics found on grocery store shelves completely useless. When choosing a quality probiotic, we want to make sure that it, at least, has an optimal and varied amount of organisms, that it has been processed appropriately, and that it has been stored properly.

Home Test to Make Sure Your Probiotic is Working

I wanted to test my probiotic to make sure it was of good quality and working well. To test the viability of your probiotic, you can perform a very simple test at home. This test will demonstrate whether your probiotics are still alive and able to deliver the benefits they are capable of. I have tried this test with multiple grocery store brands (I’m going to be nice and not mention them), and guess what? Not ONE passed the test, leading me to believe that they did not contain any living organisms!

Here’s What to Do:

• Put 1/2 cup of milk into a small bowl and allow it to come to room temperature.
• Break open your probiotic capsule into the milk. Be sure your probiotic contains the strain lactobacillus acidophilus for the experiment to work.
• Allow the milk to sit, undisturbed, for 1-3 days.
• Check each day to see if the milk has thickened or formed lumps. If it has, your probiotic supplement has passed the test and is viable.

The probiotic I use, Young Living’s Life 9 probiotic supplement passed the test with flying colors. It began by thickening within the first 24 hours, forming a yogurt-like consistency, which then developed into a solid mass, a sure sign that the cultures are alive and well!

What Else Do I Look For in a Quality Probiotic?

Besides ensuring the most basic of all qualifications – that your probiotic is actually alive and can work – there are a couple of other points to consider when choosing an optimal probiotic supplement.

1. As a general guideline, any supplement that you spend your money on should come from a company you can trust.
2. Choose a probiotic with multiple strains of bacteria. I recommend at least five different strains. These should include several different species of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria. Young Living’s Life 9 contains 9 different strains – hence the name.
3. Choose a high-potency probiotic with a high number of live cultures per capsule. This may be listed as CFU (or colony forming units). Life 9 contains 17 billion CFU (yes, that’s billion with a B).
4. Make sure your probiotic is in a delayed-released capsule so that it can travel through the stomach safely, and actually reach it’s targeted area in the gut.

Don’t skimp when buying a probiotic. I love a good deal but have learned to do a little research before spending my money on a product that will not work. Probiotics can have a powerful impact on our health – make sure you use a good one!

If you like some help getting your hands on the highest quality supplements on the market, I’m here to help you. Shoot me a message and we can figure out what would be the most beneficial for you.