(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-11 15:53

University of Michigan researcher Gary Huffnagle calls probiotics "a new essential food group" in his new book, "The Probiotics Revolution."

The concept, however, is not new.

Yogurt, made from milk fermented by bacteria, dates back centuries and has been said to have cured a 16th century French king's intestinal illness and to explain longevity in rural Bulgaria.

But there's an emerging shift in how scientists view probiotic bacteria and their role in health.

Millions of good bacteria live in the intestinal tract, helping keep bad, illness-causing bacteria at bay. Scientists increasingly believe that illness arises when that balance gets out of whack and bad bugs start to take over.

This overgrowth has been implicated in many common digestive problems including inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome, said Dr. Sri Komanduri, a gastrointestinal specialist at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center.

This line of thinking "has prompted not only the medical industry and obviously the food industry to try to create things to shift the balance back toward that good bacteria," he said.

Komanduri prescribes medical-strength probiotic pills containing 450 billion live lactic acid bacteria for inflammatory bowel disease and bacterial overgrowth in the gut.

But he doesn't recommend them for patients without specific complaints, and doesn't recommend probiotic foods because he said there's no evidence that they are as effective.

Patients who use them and report benefits are likely experiencing a placebo effect, Komanduri said.

Commercial products containing probiotics fall under Food and Drug Administration regulations. They are not supposed to make drug-like claims about curing or treating specific illnesses, said FDA spokeswoman Kimberly Rawlings.

"As long as they don't cross the line," they can come pretty close, she said.

Huffnagle advised consumers to be wary of probiotic-containing products that don't specify how much or what type of bacteria.

"If a company says something is probiotic, the question is, how much, and what kind," he said.

Evidence suggests the bugs need to be alive and ingested in huge amounts, generally between 5 billion and 10 billion daily, he said.

While some products claim to have more, he said it's uncertain whether more is better.

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