Dr. Trisha Pasricha

That's not true.

In fact, the American Gastroenterological Association does not recommend probiotics for most medical conditions.

Really?

I know.

I know.

It comes as a shock because you always see, like, recommended by most gastroenterologists or all gastroenterologists recommend.

That's not the case.

It's not because I'm going to tell you if you've come to me and you've been taking this probiotic for years that you've loved, you digest better, you poop now once a day easily, that your probiotic is not working.

It could be working, but we don't have enough robust data to say in whom it's always going to work consistently that we can make a good recommendation for it and feel ethical about doing that.

Yeah, I mean, here's the thing that I think people don't understand about the microbiome.

So if you think about your microbiome as a garden and the microbes that are living there, they are like flowers or maybe they're like weeds.

And probiotics are supposed to give you, in theory, the good bacteria.

Yeah.

Meaning the bacteria that we've seen in some studies that seem to be associated with health.

And then there's some bacteria we label as bad because they seem to be higher in people who have diseases.

Yeah.

The problem is that we actually don't know if something that we're labeling as a bad bacteria or a good bacteria is the cause of that condition or is the cause of your health.

Because what if the bacteria we're seeing that we're calling bad are actually just the bacteria that are naturally growing in response to the fertilizer you're giving it?

And they're actually trying their best to help you, but that's just what grows in that environment.

And the problem is not that you need to sprinkle probiotics on them.