Probiotic Archives

Your Gut May Protect You From Too Much Salt

Are you eating a diet heavy in processed or fast foods? Chances are good you’re eating way too much salt and setting yourself up for a lot of cardiovascular problems.

You’re already thinking, “I never touch a salt shaker at dinner or when I’m eating out.” More than 75 percent of the salt you consume hides in the processed foods you eat on the run or in a restaurant, according to the American Heart Association.

The average American consumes about 3,400 milligrams of salt every day, nearly 50 percent more than the 2,300 milligrams (1 teaspoon) recommended by most health experts.

Left unchecked, all of that extra salt in your body is a silent force that can lead to high blood pressure and, in time, heart disease, which leads the list of the top 10 causes of death among all Americans.

You probably won’t be surprised to learn all that extra salt harms your gut health too. But, a recent study on animals and human subjects appearing in Nature – a team-up between researchers at MIT and Berlin’s Max Delbruck Center and Charite – offers a bit hope.

Previous work has shown how a high-salt diet harms the body’s immune system by increasing the production of Th-17 cells that trigger inflammation and elevate a patient’s risks of hypertension.

For this new study, researchers sharply increased the salt intake of mice (eight times) and 12 healthy men (nearly three times) for two weeks apiece compared to healthier diets to determine how their bodies would react.

In both sets of tests, the composition of gut bacteria in mice and men changed for the worse with drops in Lactobacillus. These declines were also marked by expected increases in inflammatory Th-17 cells and higher blood pressure.

Interestingly, when probiotics containing Lactobacillus were introduced the collective gut and cardiovascular health of both sets of test subjects improved rapidly too, underscoring a link between salt and gut bacteria.

(Both EndoMune Advanced Probiotic for adults and EndoMune Jr contain multiple strains of beneficial bacteria, including Lactobacillus).

Extra salt harms your brain

According to researchers, heart disease may not be the only health issue affected by excessive salt intake either, as the uptick in inflammation may trigger the development of autoimmune diseases similar to multiple sclerosis.

A more recent study on salt appearing in Nature Neuroscience tied the accumulation of Th-17 cells in the gut (they produce proteins that suppress nitric oxide which reduces the supply of blood to the brain) to damaged neurons and cognitive problems related to the gut-brain axis.

“We discovered that mice fed a high-salt diet developed dementia even when blood pressure did not rise,” said senior author Dr. Costantino Iadecola, director of the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute (BMRI) and the Anne Parrish Titzell Professor of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine, according to a press release.

“This was surprising since, in humans, the deleterious effects of salt on cognition were attributed to hypertension.”

Despite the restorative power of probiotics mentioned in the MIT study, researchers were concerned consumers might take them in hopes of canceling out the effect of eating of salty, fatty foods.

Yet, as we’ve seen in previous reports documenting the production of TMAO (trimethylene n-oxide), the gut is much more strongly connected to heart disease than many experts previously assumed.

Probiotics certainly aren’t “magic pills” that can cure any disease, but even the experts have come to appreciate the many ways the gut touches all parts of human health.

Taking a probiotic, ideally with multiple strains of beneficial bacteria like EndoMune, is quickly becoming a must if you want to protect your health, safely, effectively and naturally.

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Antibiotics Hurt Your Whole Grain Intake

Diet, Drug interactions / By @drHoberman

It’s amazing how incorporating whole grains into your diet reduces your risks of serious health problems – stroke, cancer, chronic inflammation and type 2 diabetes – while delivering important minerals, vitamins and antioxidants your body needs.

Adding whole grains to your diet can be as simple as replacing white rice in your favorite meals with brown rice or quinoa, swapping out white flour tortillas with ones made with stone-ground corn or eating a little popcorn (just forget the fatty movie theater butter and salt).

However, all of that dietary goodness you’ve done for your health may evaporate when you take antibiotics, drugs that doctors prescribe too often.

Researchers at Aarhus University discovered this critical problem while examining the health of more than 2,200 Danish patients who developed cancer over a 13-year period in a 2016 study appearing in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research.

The problem occurs when antibiotics disrupt one component of whole grains, lignans (beneficial polyphenols found in a host of plant-based foods, including flaxseeds and sesame seeds), in the human gut.

Antibiotics prevent the conversion of lignans in the gut to enterolignans, chemical byproducts that behave like estrogen and have been associated with lower mortality rates among breast cancer patients.

Concentrations of enterolignans in women who had taken antibiotics dropped by 41 percent less than three months before giving blood samples and 12 percent among men, both compared to patients who didn’t take them.

Those numbers remained relatively low (26 and 14 percent among women and men, respectively) up to a year later too.

A follow-up study by part of the same Danish research team on pigs found enterolignan concentrations dropped 37 percent in animals treated with antibiotics, compared to a control group.

The easy advice would be to avoid taking broad spectrum antibiotic drugs as much as possible, but that’s just one part of the solution.

Unfortunately, our bodies are exposed to soaps, toothpastes and cosmetics on a daily basis that contain antimicrobial compounds like triclosan.

Constant exposure to these chemicals creates a backlash known as the hygiene hypothesis, in which your body’s ability to develop its own immunities to disease is weakened significantly. In other words, your environment may be “too clean” for its own good.

Protecting your body from the damage antibiotics and harmful chemicals can do to your gut is as easy and effective as taking a probiotic containing multiple strains of beneficial bacteria like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic for adults and EndoMune Junior Probiotic for kids.

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Probiotics will keep us Healthy in Space

Digestive Health, Misc, Women’s Health / By @drHoberman

The very last thing you’re probably thinking about when watching exciting science-fiction films like Interstellar or Gravity is the gut health of the astronauts flying through space.

But that doesn’t mean Earth-bound scientists aren’t studying or thinking about it… a lot!

Some of these studies could have some important real-world implications and benefits, even for the 99.99 percent of us who will never fly higher than 39,000 feet (slightly more than 7 miles) in the air.

The Twins Study

The most current and popular project has been the Twins Study, encompassing 10 NASA-funded studies that compared the molecular structures of identical twin astronauts: Scott Kelly who spent nearly a year in space living in a zero-gravity environment and his brother Mark who stayed on the planet as an “Earth-bound control subject.”

One of these research projects, based in Chicago at Northwestern University, Rush University Medical School and the University of Illinois, discovered some interesting fluctuations in the gut microbiomes of both brothers.

Researchers found imbalances in two dominant groups of bacteria (Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes) had shifted in Scott Kelly’s while space bound and returned to pre-flight levels after arriving back on Earth. Interestingly, Mark Kelly’s gut microbiome fluctuated in those two areas too, however, not as drastically as his twin.

Another very surprising result: An expected change in gut diversity while Scott Kelly was in space never happened.

Female astronauts need probiotics

A pair of Canadian researchers at Western University made a good case for female astronauts taking probiotics in a 2016 report appearing in the health journal Women’s Health.

Scientists believe the unique challenges female astronauts face — osteoporosis, breast cancer, compromised vaginal health and urinary tract infections (UTIs) — could be more problematic during space flights.

For instance, women experience more UTIs during space missions than their male counterparts. Treating women with antibiotics may be problematic due to gravity, not to mention the complications associated with overusing them, which is why researchers believe probiotics may be a better option.

“It’s important to look at the health of women,” said Carmilla Urbaniak, a Ph.D. candidate working at the school’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, according to a press release.

“We know that drugs interact differently in males and females. The impact of probiotics are also different between males and females, and it’s time we focused our research on female astronauts.”

Studying gut health on a microchip

Preventing disease isn’t the only concern on the minds of one lab funded by NASA at the University of Arizona’s Center for Applied NanoBioscience and Medicine.

Researchers there have created amazing “gut-on-a-chip” technology that mimics the internal workings of the human gut. Its primary function for this research is to test how the human gut will respond to cosmic radiation exposure during long periods of space travel.

Among the more practical applications for this microchip technology include the development of probiotics that could treat or even prevent radiation damage, says Dr. Frederick Zenhausen.

Don’t forget traveling on planet Earth

Back a bit closer to planet Earth, you may be traveling long distances in airplanes, especially over the long holiday season, to see family members far and wide.

Doing so creates opportunities for jet lag, a temporary sleep problem that happens when people travel quickly across multiple time zones.

These abrupt time shifts can also create problems for your gut, not only by messing up your body’s natural 24-hour circadian rhythms but playing a role in triggering the accumulation of body fat that leads to obesity.

Getting the right amount of sleep and eating a healthy, balanced diet goes a long way toward combating the effects of jet lag, but so does protecting the health of your gut.

Taking a probiotic with multiple strains of beneficial bacteria, like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic, every day gives your gut the extra protection it needs when traveling on land or in the air.

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How Do You Take a Probiotic?

Children’s Health, Probiotics / By @drHoberman

So, you’ve finally realized there are many reasons why you need to take a probiotic, but that’s only the first step toward improving your gut health.

How you take a probiotic — ideally with multiple species of beneficial bacteria — is even more important, as it helps you get the best value for your family’s health and your pocketbook.

Healthy kids and adults

Most healthy adults will get a much-needed boost to their immune system and gut health if they take a probiotic, ideally, about 30 minutes before eating a morning meal on an empty stomach.

This simple routine for most adults makes sense, based on the findings of a 2011 study featured in the journal Beneficial Microbes, that showed fewer good bugs contained in multi-species probiotics survived in smaller numbers through the upper gastrointestinal tract after a meal (when stomach acid is usually at its highest).

For small children age 3 or under, parents can protect their developing immune systems and reduce episodes of colic or diarrhea by sprinkling a probiotic in a powdered form (like EndoMune Junior) in a noncarbonated formula or liquid or on soft foods before or with a meal once a day.

Then, once your kids reach age 3, they can “graduate” to a chewy, fruity probiotic of their own (like EndoMune Junior Chewable).

When you’re sick

Another important consideration is how to take a probiotic when you’re sick. In fact, it’s becoming more common to see people taking a probiotic when their doctor prescribes an antibiotic, based on growing concerns about antibiotic-resistant infections.

Antibiotics can do a great deal of harm by wiping out the healthy bacteria in your gut and allowing bad bugs to hang around and cause more problems, like the persistent diarrhea associated with Clostridium difficile (C.diff).

Ideally, you’ll want to give your body at least a two-hour break in between taking a probiotic and antibiotic to allow those live and very beneficial probiotic bacteria an opportunity to protect your gut.

Before you begin taking a probiotic, it’s also critical to talk to your doctor about any concerns you may have, especially if you have a health condition that requires taking specific drugs, like antifungal products or immunosuppressants.

Deciding on adding a probiotic to your daily routine is one of the easiest things you can do for your health. But knowing how and when to use a probiotic effectively can make all the difference in your health for the long haul.

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Mangos may protect your gut from high-fat diets

Diet, Digestive Health / By @drHoberman

Not only do high-fat diets chock full of high-calorie fast foods and short on fiber expand your waistline, trigger blood sugar spikes and harm your heart, they disrupt the gut-brain axis that increases your risks for depression and other related health problems.

Fortunately, there’s very healthy and delicious foods you can eat that do double-duty to promote a healthy gut and protect your body from disease, like almonds and dark chocolate.

Add the flavorful, low-fat/high-fiber mango to that list of gut-healthy foods, based on a recent Journal of Nutrition study.

Beating the obesity epidemic sweetly

You may recall how researchers have concluded more diversity in the gut lowers your chances of obesity. Conversely, previous studies have also found lower levels of Bifidobacteria in people fighting obesity as well as type 2 diabetes.

Scientists at Oklahoma State University and North Carolina State University compared the health of 60 male mice, based on feeding them high-fat diets supplemented with or without mangos and in varying amounts (1 or 10 percent).

Animals fed a high-fat diet plus 10 percent in mangos — equal to humans eating 1.5 cups of this delicious fruit — retained more of their gut bacteria than those fed lower amounts.

Also, the addition of mangos to the diets of mice resulted in their guts containing more gut bacteria, specifically Bifidobacteria and Akkermansia (bacteria found in lower amounts in obese animals), and improved production of short-chain fatty acids (SFCAs), beneficial compounds that have anti-inflammatory properties.

“Fiber and other bioactive compounds in plant-based foods are suggested to prevent gut dysbiosis caused by a high-fat diet,” said Edralin A. Lucas, Ph.D., professor of nutritional sciences at Oklahoma State and lead researcher of the study, according to a press release.

“The results of this animal study showed that adding mango to the diet may help maintain and regulate gut health and levels of beneficial bacteria levels.”

What’s ahead

Researchers caution more work needs to be done to confirm the benefits of eating mangos on the human gut once and for all, especially for those whose diets aren’t the healthiest.

Despite their nutritional benefits — the average serving (one cup) of mangos contains about 100 percent of Vitamin C and 35 percent of Vitamin A — this juicy stone fruit has 23 grams of sugar and 25 grams of carbohydrates, not small amounts for people who are trying to kick the sugar habit. (So, if you enjoy mangos, be sure to eat them in moderation.)

No matter how nutritious, fatty or sugary your diet may be, taking a probiotic with multiple strains of beneficial bacteria like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic is a safe, proven way to protect your health and your gut.

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A diverse gut protects your health during immunotherapy treatments for cancer

Digestive Health, Disease / By @drHoberman

For many cancer patients, undergoing chemotherapy or radiation are often a necessity, but they come with lots of risks depending on the severity and length of treatments.

Rather than bombarding tumors with chemo and radiation, however, some patients and their teams of doctors are choosing other cancer-fighting approaches like immunotherapy that work far differently.

Immunotherapy focuses on treating your body’s immune system to fight cancer either by supercharging a patient’s immune system or teaching his/her body how to spot cancer cells and eradicate them. Also, in some cases, immunotherapy can aid in a cancer patient’s recovery long after treatments have ended.

But not everyone responds well to immunotherapy, which has researchers scrambling for answers.

Over the years, cancer researchers have learned how good gut health plays a critical role in protecting cancer patients during chemo treatments.

A diverse gut microbiome may also be very important in how well the human body handles certain forms of immunotherapy, according to a study presented at a recent symposium sponsored by American Society of Clinical Oncology.

A team of researchers, led by senior study author Dr. Jennifer Wargo from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, studied the connections between a healthy gut and the benefits of immunotherapy by examining fecal and oral bacteria samples taken from more than 200 patients fighting metastatic melanoma, an advanced form of skin cancer.

Ninety-three patients received an anti-PD1 immune drug that blocked a pathway protecting tumor cells from a patient’s immune system equipped to fight it.

From that smaller group, scientists studied fecal samples provided by 30 patients who responded to immunotherapy and 13 more who didn’t.

No surprise, patients who responded to the anti-PD1 drug had greater diversity of gut bacteria and for a specific type of bacteria (Ruminococcaceae). Plus, an examination of their tumors uncovered a greater number of cancer-fighting immune system cells (CD8+T).

On the other hand, patients whose bodies didn’t react to immunotherapy drugs had much lower gut diversity and one specific family of gut bacteria (Bacteriodales).

“Meanwhile, we need concerted research efforts to better understand how the microbiome may influence immune responses, as well as an in depth view on how we can tweak the microbiome so that more patients can benefit from immunotherapy,” said Dr. Wargo, an associate professor of genomic medicine and surgical oncology, according to a press release.

Some of that tweaking may come from changing a patient’s dietary habits or boosting the diversity of their gut by recommending a probiotic, scientists said.

Although taking a probiotic is beneficial for your health, many believe eating a cup of yogurt or taking a cheap supplement containing one or two strains of bacteria is good enough.

The real value of taking a multi-strain probiotic like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic: Ten strains of beneficial bacteria plus the prebiotic FOS provide 20 billion allies that protect your health every day.

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Yogurt and your gut health

Diet, Digestive Health / By @drHoberman

When people talk to me at seminars about improving their gut health, some say they’re already eating yogurt every day… So why should they take probiotics?

Their confusion is understandable. Big food companies spend a lot of money on studies to show off the healthy value of foods they produce, like this 2013 study published in the journal Gastroenterology funded by Danone Research.

For this small study, scientists tested the effect of a non-fermented yogurt containing four different strains of probiotic bacteria on 36 women (ages 18-55) for four weeks on brain functionality.

Patients were divided into three groups: Women who ate the yogurt with beneficial bacteria twice a day, a plain mixture with no bacteria or nothing at all.

Based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) done before and after the four-week period, women who ate the yogurt containing probiotic bacteria experienced a decrease in engagement in parts of their brains when shown a series of frightened or angry faces, then matching these with other faces showing the same emotions.

Also, women who ate the probiotic-laced yogurt experienced greater connectivity with the prefrontal cortex during a resting fMRI. In fact, scientists were surprised to see these effects in many areas of the brain, including sensory processing.

The real benefit of this study was to demonstrate one more time how consuming beneficial probiotic bacteria affects the gut-brain axis — the biological connection linking the gut, emotions and brain as one — in very positive ways.

Why not yogurt?

Still, the looming question — Why isn’t the yogurt you’re eating having the same effect on your gut health and emotions? — remains.

It’s very possible scientists tested a mixture of live bacteria in that non-fermented yogurt. Unfortunately, most brands of yogurt you’ll find at your neighborhood grocery store are made with high-heat pasteurization.

This processing kills harmful bacteria at the expense of introducing new bacteria that may not benefit your health.

Plus, most yogurt brands are made with a problematic list of ingredients (artificial sweeteners, dairy fat or sugar) that can drive obesity.

To derive any gut health benefits from yogurt or other probiotic/fermented foods we reviewed in a recent blog post, you’ll probably need to prepare them, a time-consuming task that requires a lot of time and follow strict food safety guidelines to protect yourself from illness.

The major difference between eating yogurt or fermented foods and taking a daily probiotic is a pretty simple one. With foods, you’re not sure how much beneficial bacteria you’re eating from serving to serving, if any at all.

Taking probiotics, like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic and EndoMune Junior, ensures you’re receiving multiple strains of beneficial bacteria plus prebiotics that feed the good bacteria already living in your gut.

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Protect your teeth from thrush with probiotics

Diet, Probiotics / By @drHoberman

The great thing about probiotics is how versatile the beneficial bacterial can be at treat health conditions unrelated to your gut. Recent studies have shown how probiotics treat common tooth-related problems like gum disease and help tooth decay.

Researchers in Sweden and Denmark have found success in treating thrush (oral candidiasis), a condition experienced by nursing home residents, with a probiotic lozenge containing Lactobacillus reuteri, according to a study published in the Journal of Dental Research.

Thrush is a pesky health problem that occurs when the fungus Candida albicans accumulates in large quantities in the mucous membranes of the mouth, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Learn more about thrush

Although Candida albicans lives naturally in the mouth, the fungus becomes a problem when it grows out of control, creating white lesions on the tongue or inner cheeks, which can spread further to the gums, tonsils, the roof of your mouth and into the throat.

If you’re in good health, thrush isn’t a serious health condition to treat and it can happen to anyone. Thrush occurs most often among the elderly, babies, toddlers and their moms.

Thrush can become harder to control if your immune system is compromised by health problems, including uncontrolled diabetes, cancer, HIV, hormonal changes experienced by pregnant women, if you wear dentures or smoke.

Taking some medications can mess up the balance of bacteria in your mouth such as birth control pills, corticosteroids and antibiotics may trigger thrush too.

Treating thrush with probiotics

Typically, doctors treat thrush by prescribing antifungal medications for 10-14 days. For this latest study, 215 seniors living in nursing homes were given probiotic lozenges containing either two proprietary blends of Lactobacillus reuteri or a placebo, every day for 12 weeks.

Although there were no great differences between either group in levels of supragingival plaque (the tooth surface above the gum line) or bleeding, Candida levels dropped in saliva and plaque by more than 50 percent in the group taking probiotics.

Among the complementary and alternative therapies listed by the University of Maryland Medical Center for thrush, probiotics containing Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium topped the list, especially when taking antibiotics that may eliminate the friendly bacteria that prevent thrush from becoming a health problem.

Both Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium are some of the proprietary strains in EndoMune Advanced Probiotic, EndoMune Junior and EndoMune Jr. Chewable Probiotic for Kids (for kids ages 3-8).

How to prevent oral thrush

Preventing oral thrush is pretty simple, if you follow these simple steps.

Visit your dentist for regular checkups.
Don’t smoke and quit if you still do.
Practice good oral hygiene (daily flossing and tooth brushing).
Avoid using mouthwashes or sprays too often as they can also disrupt the safe balance of microbes in your mouth.
Limit your intake of foods containing processed sugars and yeast.

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A probiotic every day keeps listeria away!

Diet, Disease, Probiotics / By @drHoberman

The norovirus isn’t the only infectious disease sneaking up to harm the health of unsuspecting Americans.

Over the past six months, America’s once safe food supply—from whole foods including plums, peaches and nectarines to processed foods like bagged salads, cheeses, salsa, peanut butter, fruit pies, hummus and pre-packaged meals—has been plagued by the harmful foodborne L. monocytogenes bacterium, better known as listeria.

Unfortunately, this latest outbreak of listeria doesn’t have any boundaries, as major grocers, including Target, Trader Joe’s, BJ’s, Costco, Hy-Vee, Sam’s Club, Whole Foods, Wegmans and Giant Eagle, have sold foods that have been recalled due to potential contamination.

Listeria popped up on the radar of food safety experts and consumers most notably in 2011 when an outbreak infected cantaloupes grown at Colorado-based Jensen Farms that sickened 147 Americans in 28 states, including 40 in the Centennial state.

Of those who were sickened, 33 people died and a pregnant woman suffered a miscarriage, culminating in the worst foodborne outbreak in the U.S. in at least a century.

The human targets of listeria

Listeria is a very hardy bacteria—it can survive even in refrigerated and freezing environments—and is very common in our environment, yet very few Americans (1,600) are sickened by it annually.

Symptoms range from the light—fever, muscle aches, nausea and diarrhea—to the more serious—headaches, stiff neck, loss of balance, confusion and convulsions—and the incubation period could stretch out to 70 days. Yet, pregnant women may only feel a mild flu.

However, in the right environments, listeria can be very deadly, as it is the third leading cause of death from food poisoning. Patients at the greatest risk of harm:

Pregnant women and their newborns
People with weakened immune systems
Seniors age 65 and older

The six ways to avoid listeria infections

The good news: People who are prone to develop more serious problems due to listeria or other food poisoning issues can take some very simple steps to avoid them:

Avoid unpasteurized (raw) milk or soft cheeses.
Refrigerate any leftovers within two hours and reuse them in no longer than four days.
Maintain the same low temperatures in your refrigerator (40 degrees Fahrenheit or lower) and freezer (0 degrees or lower) with a thermometer.
Don’t eat hot dogs and deli meats until they’re steaming hot.
Avoid eating risky foods by monitoring websites like Foodsafety.gov.
Take a multi-species probiotic like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic or EndoMune Advanced Junior for kids can help prevent infections caused by contaminated foods by boosting your intestinal immunity.

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Is kombucha tea really the “Champagne of Life” or an imposter?

Diet, Digestive Health / By @drHoberman

A diet rich in colorful fruits and vegetables and protein sources that aren’t red meat, along with cutting back on your daily caloric intake, can do wonders for your overall health, waistline and, particularly, your gut health (promoting the presence of beneficial bacteria, including Lactobacillus).

So, you may be thinking eating probiotic-rich foods in addition to taking a good probiotic is a good thing for your health. However, the jury is very much on the fence about the true benefits of eating probiotic-rich foods.

These mixed messages haven’t slowed down the meteoric popularity of kombucha tea—affectionately called the Champagne of Life, Fungus Japonicus and Mushroom Infusion—on grocery and book store shelves as a complete cure-all nor has it changed the minds of foodies about its perceived value as an energy booster or “fountain of youth.”

Looking for the cultures

Tart and bubbly, kombucha tea is made when brewed black tea is steeped with sugar, then fermented with cultures of bacteria and yeasts in a glass container. After at least a week’s time, billions of microorganisms ferment, soon forming a kombucha mushroom or SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) on top of the tea.

The bacteria cultures contained in kombucha tea can vary greatly, from Saccharomycodes ludwigii to Candida stellate and Pichia fermentans. (Depending on how and where kombucha tea is made, it may also contain molds and fungi.

Despite the questions, people are buying millions of bottles of kombucha tea from companies like GT’s, Tonica and Celestial Seasonings at $4 per bottle. Last month, a new book by Steve Lee, the Portland-based entrepreneur behind Kombucha Wonder Drink, entitled Kombucha Revolution: 75 Recipes for Homemade Brews, Elixirs and Mixers, shows people how to incorporate the popular drink into daily diets.

The reality versus the hype

Unfortunately, the perceptions don’t match the debatable health benefits of kombucha tea. Surprisingly, the verdict from most conventional health sources (WebMD, Mayo Clinic, American Cancer Society) matches some of the same concerns voiced by alternative health expert Dr. Andrew Weil.

For one, it’s tough for consumers to make kombucha tea in germ-free home environments and at room temperatures for as long as 12 days where it can become contaminated with harmful bacteria. In an op-ed, Dr. Weil expressed grave concerns about the contamination of home-brewed kombucha teas, as some have contained aspergillus, a toxin-producing fungus.

The high amount of alcohol in home-brewed kombucha teas is another concern, according to Dr. Melissa Wdowik of Colorado State University. In fact, the Whole Foods grocery chain pulled all brands of kombucha teas four years ago due to fluctuations in alcoholic content above the legal 0.5 percent limit, until those amounts dropped.

Also, the “real” health benefits of kombucha teas from the scientific realm are almost non-existent. Although some research has been done with animals, no clinical studies related to kombucha tea have been conducted on humans.

Finally, never assume you’re getting the beneficial strains good bacteria you’d normally receive from taking a probiotic like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic in kombucha tea.

Taking a daily probiotic made from multiple strains of beneficial bacteria is far more effective in treating a wide range of problems, from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) to traveler’s diarrhea, than drinking kombucha tea with no measurable benefits.

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