Probiotics may be invisible to the naked eye but they’ve been dominating product formulations, industry news, supplements research, and consumer demand for the past few years. The more you’ve read about them, the more you may have come across phrases like “human adapted” or “human strain”. What does this actually mean though? Is this just marketing-speak for “diaper sourced”? Thankfully not!
Human adapted is a real selling feature and advantage for a number of reasons. In a nutshell, this means that particular probiotic strain is able to implant and adhere to human intestinal lining. This means your probiotics will not just pass right through you and vanish with your next bowel movement. Therefore, they are able to out-compete pathogenic bacteria for food and space in the intestines; human adapted probiotics like those in our Udo’s Choice® Probiotic (US/CA) brand can persist for 8-10 days in the intestines after supplementation has stopped.
Not all probiotics are created equal. You can have a dozen Labrador Retrievers but some of them may be lazier than others, faster than others, better at swimming than others, etc. The same goes for probiotic strains. Udo’s Choice® brand probiotics are put through a variety of quality tests to ensure only the best strains are chosen. You can have a dozen different Lactobacillus acidophilus or plantarum strains but they might not all be gastric acid resistant, bile resistant, non-competitive with other probiotics, able to produce antibacterial substances, and, yes, be human adapted.
So where do they come from? The original stock (mother stock) would have been purchased many decades ago and is kept at -80 degrees Celsius at the manufacturing center. Then, every 5 years a sample is taken in order to cultivate new batches of probiotics. This sample is enough to make 5 years of stock. Doing it this way helps prevent any mutations in the strains by not using residue from each batch to make the next batch. The strains in the Udo’s Choice® blends are produced this way in a GMP certified laboratory facility in Canada. No diapers were disturbed in their making!
About the author - Robert Dadd Robert’s interest in herbs, supplements and health began in university and was further influenced by several years of work and travel throughout India, Nepal, Indonesia, and Japan. He has completed a BA in Communications from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada and completed 3 years of study with Dominion Herbal College resulting in a Master Herbalist diploma. His areas of interest include research into adaptogens, probiotics and essential fatty acids. He currently works with Flora Manufacturing and Distributing as the Product Information Supervisor in the Product Information Department. He has written numerous articles for publications in the US and Canada like alive, Taste for Life, Tonic, and Viva magazine.
