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See also the post on Dannon Activia.
You’ve got to be skeptical about the benefits of Activia when the ad I saw tonight said: “Eighty-seven percent of us report some problems with regularity and can [”therefore” is implied] benefit from Dannon Activia, with bifidis regularis.” That is my paraphrase of what I heard about an hour ago. My instant reaction was that either the 87% includes people with IBS or it doesn’t
- If people with IBS are included, then Dannon is making a medical statement that we can benefit from eating Activia, when it fact it may give us violent diarrhea (on top of “normal” diarrhea) because some of us are lactose intolerant. I don’t think that’s a benefit of eating Activia.
- If only people who don’t have IBS are included in the 87%, then that implies that the remaining 13% is composed of people who never have regularity issues and don’t need Activia, and people who *do* have “regularity issues”–because they have IBS–and *shouldn’t* eat Activia.
My guess is that if the statistic is *real* then what they did was ask, in a survey, “Do you ever have irregularity for any reason.” If that is the basis, then option #1 above applies. Dannon Activia is making a medical statement in promoting Activia as usable and beneficial for everyone in their 87% group, regardless of lactose intolerance. Or did they cook the statistic by weeding out people who had already told them they were lactose intolerant?
Someday we’ll know.
Again, the link to the previous post on Activia, and the comments.
March 22nd, 2008
Posted by
tummyblogger |
Probiotics, Digesting Information, Dannon Activia Yogurt |
2 comments
Summary
Quick summary of the For My Tummy position:
Probiotics in pills or capsules that protect against stomach acid, GOOD.
Probiotics in food, exposed to digestive juices all the way to the gut, BAD.
Types of Probiotics
That is to say that probiotics such as Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ and Align ™, both reviewed on this blog, are helpful forms of probiotics, and the strains seem to help more than Acidophilus or the multiple strains in the Neutraceuticals products. Both Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ and Align ™ are encapsulated in such a way that they do not need to be refrigerated, as some probiotics do. They also seem to reach the gut and then have the intended effect of improving gut (large intestine) response in the digestion of foods on an IBS diet, and perhaps extend the range and types of foods that can be eaten.
Probiotics in Food
Probiotics as food additives are unlikely to produce such help, because they are unlikely to reach the gut with their probiotic bacteria intact. Dannon’s web site section for health professionals summarizes a study that says that indeed their probiotic travels the entire digestive tract and emerges in the same strength–and then omits all the details that help to judge a study’s validity. Not to mention that people with some digestive problems have lactose intolerance, strong enough that they cannot eat yogurt. The encapsulated pill/capsule form of probiotic stays together and protects the contents, the millions of “colony-forming” GOOD bacteria that will change the digestive activity in the gut in a good way.
Immune System Probiotics
This–the unlikeliness to be helpful–also goes for DanActive, ™ which contains “l-casei immunitas” ™ as its resident strain of bacteria. In contrast, if increased immune function is what you want, search here for the Ganeden Biotech product Sustenex ™. Sustenex provides an encapsulated form of patented probiotics that are designed to bypass digestive juices in the upper digestive tract. I’m holding off on a wholehearted endorsement, just because I haven’t investigated the research, and only know that Dr. Mehmet Oz is a fan.
Further Information
See the many posts here; search on “probiotics” and on “Dannon,” or select the category “Probiotics.”
Feel Welcome to Comment
Thanks for visiting; please leave a comment below, by clicking the “Comments” link.
January 25th, 2008
Posted by
tummyblogger |
Probiotics, Align, NSI Probiotics, Digesting Information, Dannon Activia Yogurt, Digestive Advantage - IBS, Sustenex |
17 comments
Background
As I’ve mentioned before, I received free samples of Digestive Advantage-IBS (DA-IBS) ™ from Ganeden Biotech. The understanding with them was that I would write weekly reviews, in similar fashion to those I’ve written while sampling Align. They would not, and Procter & Gamble, who makes Align, did not, have any say over what I might write.
The Wrinkle
The complicating factor is that Ganeden Biotech makes two versions of Digestive Advantage-IBS. ™ I started with the form that is in a tiny caplet for swallowing. Then, after four weeks, I switched to the form of DA-IBS ™ that comes in chewable tablets. The reason for putting the chewable tablets second was that they contain a tiny amount of sucralose, the ingredient name for Splenda ™. Sucralose “works for me,” as one of the IBS triggers. It turned out that taking only that small amount of sucralose every day was no problem.
Report
I have already reported, after four weeks of taking the caplets, that Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ is my choice for probiotic. See this post.
BUT
After a couple of weeks taking the chewable tablets, I felt that they weren’t as strong or effective as the caplets. I often wound up taking two chewables a day. Then I would take one DA-IBS chewable in the morning, and “cheat” and take one DA-IBS caplet in the evening.
Then I just thought–this is not a clinical trial, after all. What I want is the caplets, not this solution that doesn’t quite work for me. So I stopped taking the chewable form of Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ completely.
Now I take one, or occasionally two, DA-IBS caplets every day. I think the difference is not the sucralose content. My theory is that the chewables are far less likely to deliver the probiotic ingredients–yes, the good bacteria–to the large intestine, which is where I need them. This is the criticism often made of products such as DanActive ™ and Activia ™, and it may work equally well for Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ Chewables.
Availability
If the form of Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ that is available at your pharmacy/ drugstore/ apothecary is the chewable form, and you would like to try the caplet, either ask the pharmacist to order the caplets or order DA-IBS ™ caplets online from Amazon.com. It’s shipped directly from Amazon.com, not from an allied store, so should be available and fast.
November 9th, 2007
Posted by
tummyblogger |
Probiotics, IBS Triggers, Align, Dannon Activia Yogurt, Digestive Advantage - IBS |
one comment
One-Way Dialog
One way to have a dialog with readers of this blog is to look for the questions people are entering into search engines, where the search engine decides ForMyTummy has something to say on the question. Sometimes I doubt that the questioner found an answer here. When I answer these questions, it’s after the fact, but another reader may have the same question.
This one, “Is soy yogurt good for IBS?” caught my eye, because I just had a cup of soy yogurt for breakfast, and brought it to the computer with me, so it’s right here. I don’t even have to get up! I had Soy Live! (Soy Yogurt) made by Silk, in peach flavor. Here are the ingredients:
Ingredients of Silk Soy Yogurt
Organic soymilk
Organic evaporated cane juice
Peaches
Rice starch [a possible PREbiotic]
Dextrose
Natural flavors
Tricalcium phosphate
Cultured glucose syrup solids (this may be the growing medium for PRObiotic “good bugs”)
Citric acid (a preservative)
Pectin (a possible PREbiotic)
Locust bean gum (PREbiotic - the word “gum” tells us this)
Ascorbic acid (vitamin C)
Annato [sp?] and turmeric (for color)
Yogurt cultures - Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillous acidophilus, Bifidobacterium bifidum, Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus rhamosus
PREbiotic and PRObiotic = SYNbiotic
This soy yogurt has all the ingredients of a SYNbiotic (PRObiotic and PREbiotic). For a more general and technical view of the ingredients of soy yogurt, go to this site.
Oh, yes, you wanted to know about protein and sugar content and that kind of thing? This soy yogurt list of contents is from the Silk soymilk website This is for one container of peach.
Calories 160
Calories from fat 20
Total Fat 2 g., no saturated fat, no trans fat
No Cholesterol
Sodium 25 mg.
Total Carbohydrates 32 grams
Fiber 1 gram
Sugar 25 grams (which you want, for the culture to grow)
Protein 4 grams
Is it Good for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)?”
Now, to the question “Is it good for IBS?” Everything in it except citric acid is well-tolerated by people with IBS. It is not good in the sense that if one a day is good, four per day is even better. No! That’s because of the relatively high sugar content and relatively low protein content. One a day is the equivalent of one Dannon Activia per day, in terms of following the advertising for Activia. If you can tolerate lactose in the form of yogurts and cheeses, as I could once upon a time, then the Silk Soy Live! yogurt increases your options. If you are completely lactose-intolerant, as I am now, then you still have a yogurt alternative in Silk - and there may be other brands I don’t find in my local grocery stores.
In Conclusion
Incidentally, I note from my web searches that according to this blog, Wal-Mart has Silk Soy yogurt for $.89 for an 8 oz. cup! It’s an engaging post, from February 2005, so take it for what it’s worth.
“Just one more thing.” Use a supplement for a daily probiotic, rather than relying solely on soy yogurt.
August 17th, 2007
Posted by
tummyblogger |
Probiotics, IBS food, Soy Products, Prebiotics, Dannon Activia Yogurt |
one comment
Moderators in one of the IBS Forums often suggest trying Dannon Activia ™. I have not. That’s because lactose is sometimes a trigger for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)–and lactose is an ingredient in milk and milk products such as yogurt. Of course Activia ™ is a food–yogurt–and not a medicine.
Now comes this FAQ from the Chicago Tribune health reporter Julie Deardorff. On her blog she asks and answers this question about Activia and other probiotics:
Q. What’s the deal with yogurt?
A. All non-heat-treated yogurts do contain live active cultures, which include the bacteria used as starter cultures to make the yogurt [Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilis], Sanders said. “Yogurts may also contain added cultures, including probiotics. A wider range of health benefits have been documented for some of these added probiotic strains,” Sanders said. But “many of the organisms in yogurt cannot survive in the acidic environment of the stomach,” said Sri Komanduri, an assistant professor of medicine in gastroenterology and nutrition at Rush University Medical Center. “In addition, yogurt contains lactose, which can be a potent gastrointestinal irritant and may only add to the patient’s symptoms [if the person is lacatose intolerant].
Sanders also suspects many yogurts marketed as “probiotics” with added strains don’t contain enough bacteria to be effective or haven’t been studied. “I also bet there are many yogurts that contain probiotics that have little if any efficacy studies done on them,” she said.
What do you think? Has anyone tried Activia, ™ or do you know someone who has tried Activia? Is the advertising for Activia helpful at all in “normalizing” the tummy problems of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)?
August 2nd, 2007
Posted by
tummyblogger |
Medical, Probiotics, IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, IBS Triggers, IBS food, IBS-C, IBS-D, Digesting Information, Dannon Activia Yogurt |
4 comments
