Does your pet need a probiotic, or a PREbiotic?

You gotta hand it to probiotics; they’ve had a good run. The darling of gut health, made famous by those revolting little sour milk drinks in the 90s.

Fast forward 30 years and we’re on a first name basis with the strands; research abounds and is growing at a rate these ubiquitous microbes would be proud of. It almost seems like there’s a probiotic ready and waiting in the wings to solve every problem imaginable. 

And don’t get me wrong, I love ‘em. But do I take them myself? 

No. Not regularly or without reason, anyway. 

Outside of treating a particular health concern - such as a bout of acute gastric upset, following a course of antibiotics, during major dietary changes, or to address gut dysbiosis -what I am aiming for within myself and my dogs is gut microbiota diversity, which doesn’t come from taking the same probiotic strains every day.

In fact, taking the wrong probiotic can actually worsen the symptoms of some conditions, if not the actual condition itself. For example, in the case of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), a non-pathogenic bacteria based probiotic supplement can create more gas and discomfort during fermentation, ultimately worsening the very problem it was sent to fix.

What's a non-pathogenic bacteria based probiotic supplement, you say? These are the household names like Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium lactis, and almost all off-the-shelf probiotic blends for both pets and humans will contain them. 

SIBO is best treated with a soil-based probiotic, such as saccharomyces boulardii, which is a type of yeast that resists digestion until it reaches the large intestine, thus not further aggravating the already aggravated small intestine.  

But if you've got a dog with a yeast imbalance you can't get under control no matter what you do, it could be that they've become hypersensitive to yeast, in which case even a friendly yeast-based probiotic like s. boulardii could very likely be making your dog's condition worse. 

The point of these examples isn't to overwhelm or confuse you, but rather to highlight that it's important to get to the root cause of your pet's symptoms before you reach for the probiotics. I personally also don't recommend a daily probiotic supplement in an otherwise perfectly healthy animal, simply because I don't think it's necessary.   

Ideally the gut diversity we are chasing will come from eating a balanced and varied diet filled with as much unprocessed food as possible, regular fermented foods and an appropriate amount of fibre, including sources of prebiotics. 

And from rolling in the dirt. 

Dirt plays an important role in the health of animals in particular, which is why they naturally love to dig, roll in and sometimes even eat dirt. Humans also would have historically been exposed to the beneficial microbes in soil at higher levels than we are now, which is a result of changes to agriculture and farming methods over time. Essentially, our meat and veggies used to have less chemicals and more dirt on them. 

It also helps to avoid things that can upset the balance of the gut microbiome, like heavily processed foods and non-essential medications, but this isn’t always possible for a multitude of reasons (eg. due to chronic health conditions or financial limitations), so as always my advice is to do the best you can.

In any case, rather than just endlessly adding more of the same bacteria strains, good as they may be, we also need to foster the livelihood of the ones we’ve already got. 

One of the most beneficial and inexpensive ways to foster the health of the gut in healthy animals is by adding prebiotics to their diet, in the form of readily available foods that contain plant fibres. These indigestible fibres are the food source for the friendly critters that live and work in our gut microbiome, without which diversity cannot thrive. 

Fibre in our pet's diets is one of the often overlook components, particularly in the fresh feeding community where the "no carbs!" mantra is still wheeled out as routinely as John Howard on election night. And while I do agree that the level of carbs and fibre in most processed pet foods is excessive to the point of being counter productive, fibre is still an essential component of our pet's diet and necessary for the ongoing health of the gut. 

If we're to follow the logic that dogs and cats are biologically pretty well identical to their ancestors and therefore should eat in a way that replicates an ancestral diet, we also need to look at what's missing. Namely, things like fur, feathers and any other indigestible gross bits that our modern-day farmers deal with for us. This is roughage, which plays a functionally similar role to fibre from plant matter that we (hopefully) consume regularly ourselves. Dogs and cat have also long been observed grazing on grasses and berries, making them species-appropriate fibre sources.   

Prebiotics can be in the form of whole foods like oats, asparagus, apples, flaxseeds, seaweed and avocado (yes, they're safe!), or as powders like psyllium husks or our preferred choice for our blends; green ladyfinger banana starch. We recommend that fibre represents around 1% of a fresh (raw or cooked) diet, but you can increase this if you find your pet does better with more fibre, or if you are adding more fibre sources for financial reasons.   

If you do feed your pets a probiotic daily, make sure it’s a strain that is demonstrated to support the ailment you are targeting and not just any old generic one off the shelf.