It’s difficult to describe the “best probiotic” given that different bacteria get utilized for different regions of the body, and the fact that the body needs more than one strain in order to best benefit its systems. Moreover, some strains are better for women than men, or better for certain regions of the body than other parts. This makes it difficult to distinguish between best or worst varieties of probiotics, although most nutritionists will say a good complex of strains should have at least 2 – 4 million organisms in its makeup.

Accordingly, claim by different brands to being the best probiotic often revolve around assertions that they have the largest number of bacteria strains. Some products claim to hold 100 million, others 500 million, and others still higher numbers of organisms. One way to begin to define a standard for determining which product may be better is to look for brands that differentiate between the number of strains it has versus what it can “deliver” to the body once ingested. After all, for a probiotic to have X number of cultures at the time of manufacture does not mean they are live by the time you purchased or consume them.

What matters when using probiotics is to receive live organisms, not dead ones. The best probiotic definitely should guarantee delivery of hundreds of millions of live microflora to the intestines. Such a brand will use processes that help keep the bacteria alive or in hibernation in a capsule or other format by which it is contained. It should also have a good variety of strains of good bacteria in the formula. Every obstacle that the organism may face before entering the stomach acid, packaging, storage, high temperatures etc., should have been overcome based on the design of the product.

For these reasons, the final consideration in determining the best probiotic to buy is deciding whether to pick one up at your local health food store, online, or through other venues. In general, physically inspecting the expiration date on the supplement at the health food store will assure you that the item is fresh and usable. If obtaining the item online, the product or the catalog should offer equivalent assurances as to the freshness of the probiotic being purchased, and the integrity of the packaging to produce the delivery of the most number of live organisms possible.