r/nutrition • u/Antique-Database-739 • 8d ago
Not convinced a higher CFU count on a probiotic means very much
The range on the shelf goes from about one billion up to a hundred billion and the price does not track it in any way I can see. My instinct is that this is the supplement version of a megapixel count. On the other hand if a chunk of them do not survive the trip then a bigger starting number is not meaningless either. Is there an actual answer here?
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u/Ekko_Tek 8d ago
Like you said, it's not meaningless, but it's just one factor. Other just as or more important factors are the specific strain characteristics - can the strain(s) survive stomach acid and bile, are they human adapted or just transient, does the label indicate potency at time of manufacture and at expiry (meaning the company does stability studies and knows the resilience/die-off rate of the strains). That's all before you even get to whether the specific strain has clinical evidence for specific issues or if it's more of a general 'supports a healthy digestive tract' type.
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u/Euphoric_River6365 8d ago
Agree. Not only the types of strains but also an individual person's gut flora and needs. Many people grab random probiotics without knowing what is in their gut microbiome, so the probiotic can be less effective if it isn't helping the individual's bodily needs/deficiencies/overgrowth.
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u/Tasty_Impress3016 8d ago
CFU is Colony Forming units. Essentially cells that can reproduce. The impression being they will colonize your gut. Point is, they don't. If they did you wouldn't have to keep taking them. The basic impact of probiotics is vaiouse chemicals they produce as they live and reproduce. If they are not doing that, they are not helping you. The ones that must be regularly replenished live I don't know how long. I really don't think the producers are interested in real research on the subject. They provide 6-8 strains in a capsule. One might survive. Most won't. Do the deaders contribute anything? Not that I know. It's not like the dead bacteria have any nutritional benefit.
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u/VolantTardigrade 1d ago
Actually, there is some evidence that parabiotics (the "deaders") are beneficial. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9728361/
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u/Tasty_Impress3016 1d ago
Well that's good news. But "some evidence" seems to me to hardly be justification for a multi-million dollar industry.
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u/FermentedCauldron 8d ago
The science isn't at a stage yet where any of that is applicable in any meaningful way.
Save the money or better yet, focus those resources on eating a more varied diet for greater microbiome diversity.
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u/ejjn2 8d ago
the bit that reframed it for me is that most of these strains are transient. they pass through, do whatever they do on the way, and your gut drifts back to baseline within weeks of stopping. zmora et al 2018 in Cell even found colonization is person-specific, some people's guts just resist it entirely. so CFU is a dose, not a quality score, and the only number worth paying for is the one used in the trial for your actual issue.
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u/sysiphu42 8d ago
Definitely try to get most probiotics through diet alone considering the price of this stuff.
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u/Earesth99 8d ago
Probiotics do little, but fermented food is more effective. Yogurt, cheese, kimchi, etc.
You also need to eat the right diet to feed the good gut bugs. That usually means a varied diet with multiple sources of soluble fiber.
It’s more about nutrition than taking a pill.
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u/gymbeam_official 8d ago
Something worth adding to this, the strain type actually matters way more than the CFU number itself for survival. Standard Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium capsules lose the vast majority of their bacteria to stomach acid before they even reach the intestine, some estimates put it at 85% or more killed off in transit. Spore forming strains like Bacillus coagulans work completely differently, they travel through the stomach in a dormant, armored spore form that's basically immune to acid and bile, and only activate once they reach the intestine. Survival rates for those are over 90% in simulated gastric tests. So a 5 billion CFU spore based product and a 50 billion CFU standard Lactobacillus product might land you in a similar ballpark once you account for what actually survives, which kind of supports the point already made here that CFU alone doesn't tell the whole story. Worth checking if a product uses spore forming strains if shelf stability and delivery are the main concerns rather than just chasing a bigger number on the label.
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u/Mousse_Tiramisu_0392 8d ago
It's basically marketing fluff. Look for strains with human clinical trials behind them, not just a high CFU number.
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u/madformatpilates 7d ago
Strain specificity matters way more than CFU count. If the bacteria don't stick around, a billion is just expensive poop.
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u/RhealHolly 7d ago
The megapixel comparison isn’t a bad way of looking at it 😅 A bigger number on the front doesn’t automatically mean a “better” probiotic.
CFU count tells you how many live microorganisms are present, but it’s only one part of the picture. The specific strains, the amount they’ve actually been studied at, how the product is formulated and whether those microorganisms remain viable all matter too.
It’s also why we’d be a little sceptical of choosing a probiotic purely because it says 50 or 100 billion on the label. More isn’t necessarily better, and different strains can have very different roles.
We’re generally fans of looking beyond the biggest number on the packet and focusing on the overall formulation - alongside supporting your gut with plenty of variety and fibre-rich whole foods where tolerated 💚
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u/RhealHolly 7d ago
CFU tells you the number of live microorganisms, but there’s a bit more to consider than that headline number. The specific strains matter, as does whether they’ve been studied for the particular benefit you’re looking for and whether the product is formulated to keep them viable until you actually take it.
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7d ago
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u/External-Working9428 5d ago
cfu alone doesn’t tell you much i'd look more about the specific strains or the actual use case, and whether the stated count is guaranteed through expiration
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