What are probiotics?

Probiotics are “good” bacteria or yeast that may have a variety of health benefits.1 Although we are trained to think all bacteria is definitely bad news, your body is full of different kinds of bacteria that live together and have important jobs like helping with digestion and your immune system.2 Your pussy* alone contains several hundred types that live together in a healthy vagina!3 Those bacteria are your pussy*’s microbiome. 

The term probiotic can be a noun, when it refers to dietary supplements like tablets, pill capsules, powders, lozenges and gummies which contain probiotic bacteria. It can also be an adjective, a descriptive word for certain foods, like some yogurt, some cheeses, sauerkraut, kimchi, and other fermented products, as well as suppositories, since each of these products also contain probiotic bacteria.2

Probiotic products are marketed for everything from digestive health and immunity to mental health to healthier pussies*.

How do probiotics work in pussies*?

Most often, probiotic supplements are from the Lactobacillus family. Lactobacillus create a few things that bad bacterias — like Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, and Gardnerella — don’t like, such as: hydrogen peroxide, lactic acid, and bacteriocins, which are proteins that keep bad bacteria from growing. This prevents bad guy bacteria intruders from causing infections.5 

Taking probiotics is supposed to help maintain or restore the good-bad bacterial balance in the pussy*’s microbiome to either prevent infections or help kick them out.

How common are probiotics?

Before probiotic dietary supplements were developed, folk remedies existed like eating yogurt or inserting it into pussies* (limited scientific evidence to back up doing that!) to treat yeast infections.4 But in recent years, probiotics have become more popular than ever. In 2012, almost four million Americans used probiotics, and in 2014, “the global market for probiotics was more than $32 billion.”6 According to the National Institute of Health, the number of adults in the US taking probiotics more than quadrupled between 2007-2012, from 865,000 people to nearly four million.7

Does scientific evidence conclusively show that probiotics are good for pussies*?

Not really. Despite the craze for probiotics, and that many people have positive experiences with them, evidence remains inconclusive.

Some studies have shown that probiotics can be effective when taken preventively, to keep infections like yeast and bacterial vaginosis (BV) from coming back.8,9 At least one has shown that in treating BV with antibiotics, better balance is restored to the microbiome among those who take probiotics as well.10

Important note: Even studies that support probiotics as a treatment are careful to say that probiotics can work to help antibiotics fight infections, but there is not evidence that they can be used alone in place of antibiotic treatment.4 

And still, there are no large-scale, long-term studies that prove that probiotics benefit people who are already healthy.1

Some scientists and researchers remain doubtful about the effectiveness of probiotic foods and supplements and have pointed out that many of the studies that claim to undeniably show probiotic foods and supplements can treat bacterial vaginosis, yeast infections, or urinary tract infections are often small, “low quality” studies—often funded by companies that sell probiotics.6

Then there is a separate question: even if probiotics are good for your pussy*, are the probiotic supplements you’re buying the probiotics that work? How do you know that what’s in the pill capsules are even really probiotics?

In the US, most probiotics are sold as “dietary supplements,” and don’t undergo the strict testing and quality control process that drugs do.4 From 2016 to 2017, the US Food and Drug Administration inspected more than 650 facilities that produce dietary supplements. Over half had violations and most of those violations involved the purity, strength and even the identity of the promised product.6,1 They had other random bacteria in them.1 Not cool. 

In the studies that show that probiotics work, they are using very specific strains in very specific doses administered in very specific ways. Taking random probiotics from the store hoping for the same results might be like drinking melted bubble gum ice cream for a stomach ache because it looks like Pepto Bismol. There’s no guarantee that the bacteria sold in the supplement is the specific genus, species, or strain of bacteria that was shown to be effective against a certain illness when used in its pure and carefully dosed form.6,1 

So should I buy and use probiotics or nah?

We gave you the evidence, now you decide. Although probiotics are considered safe since they’re already in your digestive system, there is a risk of infection for people with an impaired immune system.6

In any case, before you start taking supplements or eating tons of kimchi or probiotic yogurt, make sure you figure out what your probiotic needs are. The health benefits they might be able to provide are specific to specific strains of probiotics.6 Definitely don’t try to use probiotics instead of antibiotics. If you think probiotics can help you, ask your doctor to help you find the right bacteria type for your body and a quality product.