Talk:Probiotic

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 5 February 2019 and 30 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Omackraz.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:14, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

yakult image
Please excuse me if I infringe protocol. My last contribution was about 15 years ago. Why is the leading image pretty well a marketing banner for Yakult? I would post up an image of some delicious fermented food such as brie or kimchi. And Yakult is loaded with sugar! Can someone find a replacement..I am still figuring out how not to make a mess... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kim99 (talk • contribs) 14:51, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yakult is probably the leading commercial probiotic product globally, and what most people think of when they hear the term. They certainly don't think of brie, which may not be sweetened but is very high in saturated fat. Some versions of Yakult are not heavily sugared. --Ef80 (talk) 13:05, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

misleading lead sentence, and common errors in alt med reasoning occur in this article and discussion page

 * Editors make a leap from a study showing a positive effect of a single specific probiotic, to general statements of efficacy for general probiotics. This is similar to reasoning from the (dubious) finding about a single acupuncture point, to statements that there are studies showing acupuncture (in general) is effective.


 * Starting a medical article with a statement about beliefs, rather than a statement of fact, is misleading in the same way that is similar to the misleading marketing strategies of alt med promoters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.79.140.35 (talk) 15:13, 19 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I agree, the initial sentence seems to be wrong: Probiotics must inherently be the opposite of Antibiotics; the alleged "confusion" seems to be with Wikipedia as it stands. I suggest this article's text be replaced with that of the article 'Prebiotics', with appropriate editing for it to make sense, and for the text of this article to be placed within a new page, perhaps titled 'Bacteria beneficial to humans' or equivalent. As a rare user of this website, however, I leave the execution of this task to a more experienced user. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.36.28.81 (talk) 00:54, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
 * From the source cited: "Probiotics are live microorganisms that are intended to have health benefits when consumed or applied to the body". Alexbrn (talk) 06:44, 2 November 2019 (UTC)


 * The intro Paragraph gives this article a pseudoscience spin, giving the impression that there is no evidence that this is more than placebo. Then the research section mentions at least weak evidence for all of the 17 points. I don't think this matches. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.217.184.94 (talk) 12:16, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Nothing about pseudoscience. We say there is little evidence of benefit, which is correct per the rest of the article. Alexbrn (talk) 12:27, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

prebiotic not probiotic
--- 'No good evidence shows that probiotics are effective in preventing or treating allergies.[77]' -- the reference is about prebiotics-- not the same. There is a meta-analysis of probiotics: "reduces the risk of atopic sensitization and decreases the total IgE level in children but may not reduce the risk of asthma/wheeze." - I'll fix it. JuanTamad (talk) 04:03, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Good catch. I've moved that to Prebiotic and added some newer stuff. That Paediatrics meta-analysis is a bit old for such an actively-researched area. Alexbrn (talk) 09:43, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Cholesterol
The cholesterol section cites a fairly recent and decent meta-analysis which found probiotics reduced LDL chloresterol by 5%. I don't think that's an insignificant reduction. Andrew ranfurly (talk) 19:48, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yikes the source is over 20 years old!! Should probably be updated with PMID 33612379 if anyone has access. Alexbrn (talk) 20:17, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

List of fermented foods
The paragraph that contains a list of foods made with fermenting bacteria: I would like to delete this paragraph on the grounds that it is misleading and somewhat off topic. While these food products are indeed created with LABs, few of them contain LIVE bacteria, which is part of the definition of probiotic. Baking sourdough, for example, kills the bacteria. Commercial versions of many of these foods have no live bacteria in order to improve shelf-life. 68.99.51.121 (talk) 17:52, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Probiotic 114.108.219.63 (talk) 05:32, 14 July 2024 (UTC)