Dead Probiotics: Still Helpful
A common question we get is about probiotics and the concern about viability. On the face of it, this sounds like a reasonable concern, especially during summer months when the supplements might be sitting in a hot van on the way to delivery.
Our previous answer was that the reputable manufacturers (like the ones that make products we sell on OvitaminPro) pack extra bacteria into the capsules as it is a given that not all of them will make it to your vitamin cabinet.
This is an important question as the more we know about gut health, the more we know about our overall health as well as brain health.
Prebiotics don’t really matter as far as viability as these are fibers (and not living cells) that don’t get digested by our bodies anyway but are food for gut bacteria. But that is a topic for another day.
A new term has popped up and is postbiotics. Postbiotics are dead microbes, parts of dead microbes and products produced by microbes.
Recent research has indicated that dead bacteria (and other components of postbiotics) can have beneficial effects such as increasing the immune reaction to the common cold, decreasing diarrhea in kids and also decreasing sore throats in kids.
Some dead bacteria have also been shown to decrease symptoms of IBS (irritable bowel syndrome).
You might wonder about the effects of the microbes that help make sourdough bread and then get baked at 400 degrees. It is not unreasonable to expect benefits from these sacrificial microbes.
One study showed that heat treated sauerkraut and unheated sauerkraut helped with IBS symptoms to a similar degree.
The science of postbiotics is fairly new so expect to hear more about this from all your usual health sources.
A good source for more reading is Science Focus September 2025. Wanted: Gut Bacteria, Dead or Alive.
Based on new information, we can now say that perhaps the viability isn’t as important as we thought it was. This is good news and gives us one less thing to worry about.
DS DC 2026