Probiotics: The bridge from intuition to understanding

It’s quite astonishing the way probiotics and other products promoting healthy microbiomes have resonated and stuck with consumers, creating an already massive market that I dare say is based mostly on intuition.

Of course, ingredient companies have made quantum leaps when it comes to understanding why certain strains and products do what they do. But consumers have built up a confidence that has led them to keep using supplements, snacks, stick packs and numerous other beneficial bacteria delivery formats because they perceive them as working. That is an amazing foundation for brands to build on with new clinical trials and other market-affirming science.

A lot of what unfolds in this digital magazine is about those revelations, the research that is advancing our understanding about the mechanisms of action behind the benefits of diversifying the bacterial makeup of the many microbiomes connected to our general health and even some condition-specific issues.

But the underpinning of the market’s future success will always be consumers’ intuitive use of these sometimes-mind-bending products. Don’t take it from me; recall the words of a couple guys who know a thing or two about scientific discovery.

“All great achievements of science must start from intuitive knowledge. At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason.” That’s something Al Einstein told a friend, according to Psychology Today.

“You have to trust in something. Your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” That was Steve Jobs in a 2005 speech at Stanford.

My comprehension of man’s intuitive process is about the size of a speck of space dust compared to the galaxy of understanding within those two.

But I do know that my dog’s breath was absolutely wretched until I started giving her a daily probiotic and mixing in some prebiotic chew treats. Think I’ll keep doing that, haha.

To dive depper into the expanding worlds of probiotics and the micriobiome, download a digital magazine about the subject HERE.