Gastrointestinal Health
The What, When and Why of Using Probiotics as Targeted Therapies
For any practitioner who uses probiotics in their practice, there isn't a clear-cut guide on the what, when and why of using probiotics for different conditions. Worldwide, over-the-counter consumption of probiotic supplements has increased in recent years. Notwithstanding, clinical studies for many probiotic strains and formulations have had conflicting results. New stool testing modalities, like 16s-RNA PCR and whole-genome sequencing, have helped assess gut colonization by probiotics, strain-level activity, interactions with resident flora, effects on the host, and the potential useful medical indications of specific strains. Regardless, trying to design test-guided probiotic formulations based on shot-gun sequencing of a stool specimen is still not exact science, as I have seen in patients who have tried customized probiotics through companies, like Sun Genomics, not achieve the intended results one would expect through "customization."