Probiotic/Acidophilus Misunderstandings

How does Bowel Strength strengthen the bacteria in my bowel if it contains no probiotics?

One of the most frequent questions I hear is, “How does the Bowel Strength work if it does not contain probiotics/acidophilus?” Perhaps a single day does not go by that I am not asked this question.

The reason for the confusion is that most of you have been led to believe that probiotics are live bacteria that march into your gut and set up camp. But this is not true:

Probiotics like acidophilius are not live bacteria.

Probiotics produce an acid by-product in your bowel that helps the good bacteria that are there grow and multiply. The berberine and grapefruit seed extract in the Bowel Strength DO THE SAME THING. I have explained this in my book—see pages 167-169 in "This Works, Crutches Don't"—yet I still get tons of questions about this, implying that these misunderstandings are strongly rooted (and that I should have spent more time explaining this in my book!)

So I will provide another analogy for you, in my never-ending attempt to set you on the right road. (I suspect that I will STILL get many questions about how the Bowel Strength can work if it has no probiotics in it, and all I can do is keep trying to “undo” your current way of thinking…)

If you had no money, you would die (of starvation etc). Likewise, if you had no healthy bacteria in your bowel, you would die, too. If you had $4000 in the bank, you would want it to grow and multiply. To do so, you could invest this money in real estate, gold, a money market fund, a CD, etc. These are all different investment vehicles, but they all help your money grow and multiply (well, in the good ole days, but you get the point!). Likewise, there are many “investment vehicles” for your good bacteria, as well. One of them is probiotics. Another is grapefruit seed extract. Another is berberine (these last two are in Bowel Strength). There is not one way to help your money grow, and there is not just one way to help your good bacteria grow and multiply, either. The majority of the clients that I have seen who have rebuilt the bacterial environment in their bowels have never taken acidophilus; they have done this exclusively with Bowel Strength.

Probiotics—No refrigeration required?

Likewise, for at least two decades, most probiotics have been stored in the refrigerator, and the accepted thinking was that these “live organisms” would die if not kept cold. “Travel acidophilus,” which did not require refrigeration, was always considered far inferior. Likely, a number of bottles of acidophilus, and hard-earned money, has been “thrown down the drain” by those who accidentally left their acidophilus out of the fridge for too long. And how many of you have neglected to take your acidophilus because of the need for refrigeration? You either forget it, or find it is too inconvenient to travel with it that way.

So I was a bit shocked, and even upset, to receive a recent report from the manufacturer of the line of probiotics I carry (from a very large lab that specializes in these products) that found that after many months at 75 degrees—or a tad above room temperature—the strength of these probiotics was still in tact. Wow. Why hasn’t this been done before? I have been ordering these products for 16 years and have never seen a similar experiment. Why are I, and you, paying to have these packed in ice, if this is not needed?

Most of all, the greatest relevance of this information is the fact that it changes your perspective on these products. Maybe the companies who sell these like your accepted perspective—that this is a live bacteria marching into your gut and setting up camp? That wrong idea probably sells a lot of these. It is profitable for the makers of them.

So if you are taking probiotics like acidophilus, do not store them in the sunlight or in a room that is above 75 degrees, and if you still feel insecure about this test, keep them refrigerated. But do not throw them out if they get left out and you MUST stop thinking of this product as live bacteria. It does nothing by hurt your chance of success in healing your bowel! (Gee, if I am taking 400 billion LIVE organisms a day, it should take only a few months to rebuild my bowel…could be your dangerous assumption as a result.)

Do I take these on an empty stomach or not?

If you read many different bottles of acidophilus you will find that some recommend that they be taken with meals, but most advise they be taken without. So what is the real deal? Like many things in this field, most practitioners “go with the flow.” I too am guilty of this at times (and even made the recommendation in my book to take them on an empty stomach), but largely because I am already “fighting” so many misunderstandings and fears, I simply didn’t want to add more. Having said that, in my extensive experience with these products, it does not matter when you take them. They work no matter what. More accurately, they work if you take the right amount and use them as healing agents, not crutches. Chapter 7 of "This Works, Crutches Don't" tells you all you need to get results with these products. Do not let the inconsistencies in advice for their use—empty stomach or not—confuse or frustrate you. Just take them!