Experts in probiotics out there - advice needed

[mears]

What are the best sources? Live yogurts and Actimel etc - do they provide enough? Are supplements better or a con? Would like to see if they will help 16year old ds's eczema but not sure of best way to go about it.

Capsules would be my recommendation - but check if they need to be kept in the fridge. They are coated in something so they break down in the right part of the gut. Apparently a lot of the usefulness of ones in yoghurt etc. are detroyed by stomach acids.

Also EFA's help them work better, so a capsule of one of those might be an idea too.

Mears I bought a book about this:
Probiotics Nature's Internal Healers by Natasha Trenev, ISBN: 0-89529-847-3
She recommends: DDS-1 Super Strain and the Dairy-Free NAS Super Adhesion Strain. For Bifidus she recommends Bifidum Malyoth Super Strain in a dairy free organic base of modified garbanzo bean extract. For infants: the infantis NLS super strain. She also recommends LB-51 (for adults), which is the Lactobacillus Bulgaricus Super Strain. This stuff is magical and is worth a try!! She says to avoid probiotics made with FOS (Fructoligosaccharides) she believes they need more testing on this, it is a sugar derivative and can stimulate yeast infections, it is similar to Olestra in that it is inert in the mouth and the small intestine, it is digested in the colon by the bacteria there and she believes it may affect the metabolic activity on the colon. This is only one source of information, I am sure there is lots more research and reading to be done on this subject and I await more responses from other moms that can compliment this post.

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Thanks robinw - will look at the info you posted. I am surprised that there hasn't been a bigger response. I thought that there would be a few mumsnetter experts out there.

oh thanks!!
this is one of my resolutions
my ds is 17 months and want to start probiotics,....
i need to get hs measles jab sorted soon and want to get probiotics sorted out first

I'm so not an expert that I hadn't heard of the word "probiotics" until about 5 days ago when I changed 4 mth old ds to new hungry baby milk that said "now with probiotics" on the box. HOWEVER.... since being on it his ezcema has dramatically improved. And nothing else has changed, except he has also been having oatbaths every night. But the biggest improvement has been on his face and that isn't in the oatbaths so perhaps it is the probiotics? Do let us know how your ds gets on with them.
The thing that I found worked with my 5 yr old dd's eczema was taking omega 3 and 6 in the form of "Udo's Essential Oil" - from health food shops. Mixture of flax seed, sunflower and linseed oils - dramatically improved her skin I think.

Have you thought of just buying the probiotics e.g. from The Nutricentre (try google)? You can then add them to whatever food you like. You might need to check if OK in cold and hot/warm food and acid, e.g. juice

Im no expert on probiotics either but just wanted to share my experience.My dd who is 14 months was a wonderful child so happy go lucky pottering round all day,goiny to bed at 6pm and sleeping till 7:30am,then she had her mmr jab then within three days of the jab she had turned into a brat,screaming all day long hanging off my leg and just not being content with anything or anyone,she began screaming for up to 3 hours when she went to bed.I was advised by jim jams i think to give her probiotics so off i went to our local health food shop.My dd is dairy intolerant so coulnd have them in yoghurt or these yakult drink thing,so the women gave me capsules which i could open up and outin her food,they had to be kept in the fridge and added to something cold.THhe result is that she had 1 capsule for 5-6 days and is now back to being my perfect dd.

The refridgerated ones are better than the not....(no time at the mo to look up why.....but I do have the info somewhere...also, beware where you get them from as if they were supposed to be refridgerated and were not during transport etc... ( although on the bottle of capsules that I took, it said that some are able to be kept not refridgerated for up to 12 or 24 hrs or something like that....)
There are dairy free capsules.....(if you are avoiding dairy coz of the eczema....which is what I took. (I took them in last mnonth of pregnancy for dd2 and gave dd1 a months dose for her eczema too...not sure there was any difference...) it is so hard to tell if anything works or not as her eczema fluctuates on its own anyway.....!

Yes marz it was the dairy free capsules we had and they were kept on the shelf in the shop but said on the label once open keep refridgerated.