New Affordable Probiotics by Natural Factors

We’ve brought in some great new probiotics that will be on sale every day, making them very affordable for a daily use probiotic. They're by Natural Factors, and most of them offer a two-month supply. They're great everyday probiotics, with good dosages for everyday use. Our favorite, their 12/12 probiotic, offers 12 billion probiotic strength over 12 different well researched strains, that we have on sale for $23.99 for a two-month supply. I feel like it's a good potency and a nice daily use probiotic. We still have a number of high potency products (True Grace's wonderful 90 billion strength probiotics for example), for people experiencing digestive issues or if you've been on antibiotics and need to replenish the good bacteria in your microbiome. I don't know that everyone needs to be taking a super high potency probiotic every day, however. It's certainly not a bad thing to do, but I think it's more important to have an affordable probiotic that has decent potency that can be used consistently.

I really like Natural Factors. They don't have the fanciest bottles or labels, but they really focus on quality. They have tons of top tier certifications for purity and transparency, and I honestly feel like they could price their products much higher than they do. They also work well with small businesses like us and are willing to offer us sales that we can pass on to our customers to further lower the prices.

I genuinely do believe in probiotics, but most of the benefits that I’ve read about talk about probiotic use over the long term. It's hard to spend a ton of money on a probiotic when the benefit is usually more far reaching versus something that you see right away like curcumin or theanine. I like these new probiotics by Natural Factors because I feel like they’re reasonable priced and are a good product that can be used every day without breaking the bank.

We should have these new probiotics on sale for at least this next 6 months, and hopefully we can continue the sale indefinitely. The 12/12 probiotic with 12 billion per capsule and 12 different strains is our favorite, but they also have a senior formula, a women's formula, and a whole variety of great probiotics that we brought in. The senior formula is really unique since it contains specific strains made to be beneficial for our digestive systems as we get older, since many feel like their digestive health can dramatically change as they get older.

Probiotics are great for digestion and the immune system which is what they're most known for, but new research is constantly coming out about the connection of digestion and our microbiome affecting so many different aspects of our health, from brain function and depression to even a new study I read today saying that probiotics helped with blood sugar control for people who were taking the prescription metformin. They're a really great thing for our overall health, and I would definitely recommend adding them to your daily regimen. Stop by the store so we can help you find the right product for your individual needs.

Product Updates

We have some great new products in the store if you haven’t noticed them. Our new one-a-day food based multivitamins from Bluebonnet are one of our favorites. They have a 40+ Women’s one-a-day capsule that we really recommend since our other 40 or 50+ women’s multis are either in a larger tablet or the serving size is more than one a day. We also have a regular women’s one-a-day from Bluebonnet. They difference between them is that the regular women’s has 100% of the daily value of iron, where the 40+ does not. Women only need iron if they’re menstruating, so that can help you to choose between the two varieties.

Our Kal Magnesium Glycinate products are still out of stock because they’re being reformulated and they don’t have a timeline for when they’ll be back in stock, which is frustrating. We’ve brought in a few new magnesium products as a replacement in the meantime- one by NOW Foods which I really like that’s a combination of magnesium citrate, glycinate, and malate (all well absorbing forms) in a softgel that’s only $14.99 for a month’s supply. We also have a new magnesium by Nutrigold in well absorbing capsules that are bound to amino acids from rice to help with absorption (all of our Nutrigold products are 25% off every day).

We also have some changes to our probiotics- we’ve decided to discontinue our Renew Life probiotics (they’re on sale for 50% off while supplies last). We’ve had Renew Life as a brand for many years, it was started by Brenda Watson, a natural health expert, back in 1997 but a few years ago the company was bought by Clorox. We decided to discontinue the line because we just didn’t trust they were keeping the same standards for probiotics, and we have a number of other probiotics that we would recommend that we think are equivalent if not better.

In other probiotic news, we have been out of stock of Florajen 3, a probiotic we’ve carried for many years, for a long time now. We’re unsure about the future of the company since we’ve been trying to get a hold of them for months to place orders without a response. If they have products available in the future we will order them, but for now there are other refrigerated products we can recommend that are more potent, with a higher amount of strains, for less money. Next time you’re in the store please ask us for a recommendation for probiotics, since we have some really nice ones that you may not be familiar with.

Probiotics for Disease Prevention [New Research]

I wanted to briefly write about probiotics since in the past few months, numerous new studies have come out showing previously unknown benefits of probiotics for disease prevention. I’ll link a few of the articles below:

New research underscores the link between multiple sclerosis and the gut microbiome

Gut bacteria trigger immune defense mechanism to protect against viral infections

Gut microbiome link to deadly chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Study offers "indisputable" link between Alzheimer's and gut microbiome

Microbiome study could change the way doctors diagnose depression

We don’t often think of our digestive system unless it’s giving us trouble, and then usually we’re just looking for a fix for those symptoms, but our digestive system and specifically our body’s unique microbiome (or the trillions of bacteria and microorganisms that live in our digestive tract) affect our health far beyond our stomach.

A healthy balance and variety of good bacteria in the body is incredibly important for overall health, but it’s easy to be ignored since many people can take probiotics and not feel very different. Part of the benefit of probiotics are more overreaching, affecting our health long term for the better. It’s similar to giving a car an oil change- generally, the car doesn’t drive very differently after having one done, but it’s important to keep the vehicle running properly in the long run.

We have lots of great supplements at the store, which have benefits for an assortment of issues, but realistically a person can’t take 100 pills a day. So as you choose the supplements that are most important to your personal health, we’d really recommend adding (or continuing to take) a quality probiotic with a variety of well-researched strains. Stop by the store because we’d love to help you choose the product that’s best for you. A favorite of mine are Solaray’s line of refrigerated Mycrobiome probiotics. They have specific formulas for a variety of needs including a women’s probiotic, a 50+ formula, and one specifically for colon health. I like them because in addition to being high potency products with a variety of effective probiotic strains, they also contain prebiotics, which help the good bacteria in your digestive tract and in the supplements you take to flourish.

New Research: Probiotics May Help to Prevent Neurodegenerative Diseases

I’ve written numerous times about probiotics and their benefits to so many aspects of our health (here’s a good overview on probiotics on our website).

Probiotics help with digestion, the immune system, and reducing antibiotic side effects, though specific strains can be beneficial for IBS, vaginal health, gum disease, and more.

New research has come out linking probiotics and a varied microbiome as a preventative measure against a variety of neurodegenerative diseases.

Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease are scary, since their onset can be unpredictable, and so much is still unknown about these uncurable diseases.

Scientists have begun to link viral infection as a possible cause of various neurodegenerative diseases (here’s a link to research on Pub Med), and have also linked good bacteria in the gut and a varied microbiome as a possibly preventative to the triggering of neurodegenerative diseases.

The colonization of good bacteria in our bodies known as our microbiome is still not yet completely understood, though now scientists are finding far reaching benefits probiotics and of maintaining a thriving and varied microbiome in our bodies, not just for digestion and the immune system, but also for mood, inflammation, and so much more.

Supplementing with probiotics is something I absolutely believe in, particularly when using a quality probiotic with a good potency and a nice variety of different strains. Different strains of probiotics, or good bacteria, work in different ways in the body, so choosing a probiotic supplement with a diverse makeup is always a good idea.

We have just brought in a new probiotic that I wanted to highlight from a company called Vital Planet, that has a line of probiotics available in both refrigerated and shelf stable varieties at high potency. Their probiotics come in a variety of specific formulas, including some formulated specifically for men or women, and contain 60 billion probiotics per capsule from 60 different strains that also include probiotics, to help those good bacteria to thrive in the body. I’ve been using their Women’s Shelf Stable Probiotic and I really like it.

Our Vital Planet Probiotics will be on sale through the month of September for 25% off, so it’s a great time to try them. We also have a limited amount of $3 off coupons at the store, which make it an even better deal, so stop by to check them out!