I am looking for a good probiotoc and watched a 20 min commecial for pro-x10 the other day. It looked really good, but Im not sure if it was just clever marketing. They suposedly use microencaptulation technology to protect each individual bacteria both on the shelf and through the stomach. ...
http://pn.biotrust.c...rox10-research/
Just did a quick skim of probiotic microencaptulation patents and there are quite a few of them having varying claimed levels of performance with Brace Gmbh claiming to be the best. Not clear which one these guys use but their cites quote a study using Probiotical S.p.A. materials that found 5x greater stomach survival rate of microencapsulated compared to raw bacteria. The chart in their marketing page comparing microencapsulated to lyophilyzed powder doesn't show that big of a gap, however. In any event, if gut survival is the only consideration, greater numbers are an alternate solution... max numbers of live bacteria listed for Pro-X10 are 4 billion compared to 112.5 billion for VSL. Suggesting that in the worst case, all other things being equal, 4x more VSL bacteria would pass through the stomach compared to Pro-X10.
The other claimed advantage of microencapsulation in increased shelf life and reduced need for refrigeration. The materials for the
Brace patent suggest that's not necessarily true for all microencapsulation techniques, which is why they claim theirs is better. Ultimately, however, this is really a cost and storage issue with refrigeration being the effective alternative. Either buy from a store that gets their stock by reefer and keeps it cool, or mail order direct in the dead of Winter and you should be good.
A competing technology to help get more bacteria to the colon alive is enteric capsule/tablet coating.
Research on enteric coating helping resist damage from bile looks good. Couldn't find any research on shelf life for enteric coating at the capsule or tablet level however so refrigeration is probably still a good idea. Nexabiotic has an enteric product with a 14 billion count/capsule and 19 organism varieties that isn't very expensive. Trace Minerals is also enteric and boasts 55 billion count and 10 varieties. Looks like a growing trend.
Howard