Stuff You Should Know - The Skinny on Probiotics

Episode Date: July 24, 2014

You can find probiotics - bacteria thought to have healthful benefits for humans - in everything from pills to yogurt. But does any of it work? Listen as Josh and Chuck get to the bottom of the science (and need for it) of probiotics and health. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-Pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry. This is Stuff You Should Know. The A-Team. No guest producer, no Ben Bowlin. Just us.

That really got under your car, didn't it? What? The 3D printing prank. What? I don't know that prank. Ben Bowlin sitting in for you. Oh, oh, that. Yeah, how many pranks have we pulled?

No, no, no. I didn't know it was 3D printing. I thought he printed something for me. No, no. No, I thought that was great. I thought it was pretty fun. Yeah. You know what I'm looking forward to?

What? Our Christmas episode. Yeah. Our Halloween episode. Because those two, no one can complain about. Yeah. There are no sides to be taken. You guys seem to favor Christmas in that Christmas episode.

You weren't very neutral about it. Yeah, those are definitely, we love those episodes. We do. Or like anything on like Play-Doh or Spam or we didn't do Play-Doh yet, did we? No, it's in the queue. Yeah, it's coming. Yeah. It's supposedly very neat stuff.

That's right. I was surprised as a child, I was not allowed to play with toys, but I had to sit in a room quietly for the first 12 years of my life. Oh, Little Albert. I wish. Yeah. Yeah, at least he got to be exposed to rabbits and stuff like that. Speaking of, you know I did a video on Little Albert.

Oh yeah? On Don't Be Numb? No, on Psychology Is Nuts. Oh, okay. Oh, and speaking of video, what a perfect segue. We have a new video series out called Studio Show Notes and if you've ever wanted to get inside the studio with this, this is the best way to do it. Yeah.

That or win a contest. Yeah, we like bring the cameras in here and we talk about like some newsy things. It's usually a news item that relates to a past show or if there's an update or a correction and it's short and sweet and that's short. It's cool. No, it's sweet. It's tangy. Yeah, short and tangy.

It's good. Yeah. It's all the Studio Show Notes. Yeah, and you can go to our YouTube channel. Search Josh and Chuck YouTube. Check those out and Don't Be Dumb. We've got some good videos going lately. And Psychology Is Nuts.

That's right. Thanks, man. Yeah. So now on to probiotics. Chuck. Yes. You remember when we went to Guatemala? Yeah.

You and Jerry both took probiotics, I think, ahead of time, didn't you? I did. And it did nothing to help you. Or was it Jerry? Which one of you got sick? No, I did. It was you. Yes, because of the ice in the rum drinks.

Man, what are you thinking? I closed my mouth in the shower, did everything right all week. And that last night, I went crazy at a dance club and drank ice with alcohol. Man, that's crazy. Yeah, I wouldn't trade it, though. That was one of the best nights. How long were you sick for? I don't remember, but I had, what did they call it, the Guate Chacolate?

That is so gross. It is so gross. That's so gross. It tore me up, but luckily it was after I'd gotten back home, because I could not imagine. I remember thinking at the time, man, if I was in Guatemala suffering through this right now, I would be miserable because I'd be missing out on the trip from our friends at Cooperative for Education. Yeah, coed.org.

The question remains, though, like probiotics. Well, no, I know you took probiotics, but the question remains, like did it help you? Did it shorten the duration of your traveler's diarrhea? I have no idea. What someone called. No, you don't. No one knows, because probiotics, although very intuitive, isn't backed up with science. Not a lot.

Not yet. Yeah, a little bit, and we'll get to findings, but yeah, I don't want to spoil it yet. We'll get to that later. No, but again, it's extremely intuitive. It makes a lot of sense. Proteics means for life or good life in favor of life. Greek. Yeah.

Yeah. It's the idea and the practice of taking bacteria that's been proven or suggested to be beneficial to the health of our guts and ingesting it, like either in a pill form or in certain types of food. Yeah, Northern Europe and Japan have been big on this for a while. Yeah, as a matter of fact, the whole concept of eating bacteria to improve health rather than contracting disease comes from Europe, comes from Central Europe or Eastern Europe. There's a Nobel Prize winner, and his name was Eli.

What is it? Mechnikov. Nice. Yeah. And Mechnikov said. Russian. Yeah. But he was studying Bulgarians.

He was studying the longevity of Bulgarian peasants, and Bulgarian peasants were known to eat a fermented milk product called Kicello Meliaco, which is sheep's milk yogurt, known colloquially here in the U.S. as Bulgarian sour milk, and it's a fermented milk product. Sounds so gross. It does, but all that is pretty tasty. It's probably like kefir or kefir. I've never had that either. It's not bad.

It's like a much more liquidy Greek yogurt. Okay. I definitely though, if I had a hot day working in the yard and Emily's like, how about some Bulgarian sour milk? It's room temperature. Yeah. Boo. Yeah.

No, you would not want to do that, but after a – just eat it, okay? Okay. You're Bulgarian. You're Belkibartokimus now. Sure. And you are living forever because you've been eating Bulgarian sour milk for your whole life. Okay.

So, I was studying this at the beginning of the 20th century, and in around 19 – I think around 1907, he published this whole idea like, wait a minute, I figured it out. There is a fermented or fermenting bacteria called lactopacillus that basically produces lactic acid during the fermentation process. And it's in this food stuff. And if you eat this food stuff, you will gain health benefits from it. And everybody's like, shut up, you crazy Russian. You're probably friends with Rasputin or something.

Yeah. And we're not going to listen to you. But it turns out he was totally right. Well, yeah, I think he was like – these are Bulgarian peasants. They should not be this healthy. No. You know? No.

Because they don't have all the benefits of living in a different place and having a lot of wealth. No. And you saw perfect strangers. Like, Belki was not risk averse, accident prone. There were a lot of reasons he shouldn't have been alive. Was he Bulgarian? I think so.

I didn't watch it. What? Yeah, I didn't watch it. I know the show, but I didn't watch it. Wow. You should go back and watch it. Yeah? Yeah.

It's a cute show. I like the dude and the other guy, too. Yeah. I don't know why I didn't watch it. What year was that? Was that 80s? Yeah, mid-late 80s, like 87, 88. I was watching Moonlighting.

You could have watched them both. I don't think they were on in different time slots. Do you remember the time slot? Dude, the one where they have to move a piano up stairs? Classic. It is. It's great TV. Plenty of guests.

Did they get it all the way to the top and it rolled back on somebody? I think that happened in the middle. Oh, man. Yeah. That Belki. So anyway, Mitchekoff publishes his findings. They go largely ignored. And around the same time, actually a few years before, there was a Frenchman named Henri

Tissier. And in 1899, 1900, he started studying the poop of healthy breastfed infants. Yeah. And he noticed that the healthiest ones all had something called what he called bifidobacterium. So Y-shaped gram-negative bacterium. And he said, you know what? I think this is linked to health. And again, no one listened to him because at the time it was like, we're all happy with

germ theory. Yeah, that was probably like magic back then. This flies in the face of germ theory. It's like, yeah, we agree. There's little tiny things around, but they're trying to kill us. They're not making us healthier. Yeah. Well, these two guys said, yes, they are.

And they provided the basis for probiotics, which still today, the two types of probiotics, the two genera of probiotics that are viewed as beneficial are lactobacillus and bifidobacterium. Yeah. It's crazy that they were on to this way back then. And now it's becoming a very trendy thing. And if you go to buy a supplement, they say to look for at least so many billion of those two strains. One billion is the minimum amount, 10 to the ninth power.

They recommend much more than that. Like Emily takes ones, it's like 15 billion. Right. Because, and we'll get into this too, you can't necessarily count on all those 15 billion being alive by the time they hit your intestines. I know. But we'll get to that, although it's sort of just. So let's talk about probiotics in general.

The World Health Organization, like you said, Europe and Japan have been hip to the probiotics for a while. Yeah. And the World Health Organization created a definition that's just out of this world. Live microorganisms, which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host, that sounds on the host to say the person. Right. And live organisms, like you could, that could be possums.

Yeah. But that is a bunch of live possums. That doesn't confer a health benefit. Well, there's only one way to find out if it does or not. Yeah. Yeah, but try it. And like we said, these days, it's in a lot of food products. A lot of people are on the supplement plan though, just to take them in a capsule form.

Right. And if you add something like a probiotic to food, you create what's called in the industry a functional food. And there's a bit of problem with functional foods in that they have made a lot of claims because they're not regulated by the FDA. Yeah. And so they can say certain things, they can't say other things, and like, I guess we can go ahead and say, because it's public news, Dan and who makes Activia.

We all saw the commercials with Jamie Lee Curtis. Activia. Yeah, one serving will make you regular. I even worked on a photo shoot for, I just remembered that now with her. For Activia? For Activia. Wow. Way back in the day.

And she got mad because a PA was taking pictures of her. Like mad mad? Yeah, she wasn't very nice about it. What did she say? Well, I was just doing that PA thing where he, no, there's a scene, he's trying to get close and listen. Were you the one who was taking pictures? No, no, no, no.

No, my friend was. And it was on the beach and I just remembered him taking pictures in her, like she didn't smash his camera. She didn't show him pen. But she had it smashed. Did she really? No, no, no. She had it, she had the film taken from him though, this is pre-digital.

Oh, wow. Yeah, I just remembered that. I'm not knocking Jamie Lee Curtis. No, I mean, you know, it's like the paparazzi following you all the way, you can't even get away from it on a film set. They smashed the camera, but Dan and did get into trouble because they overstated the effects and while they're not under the FDA, the FTC got involved and said the Federal Trade Commission and called them out and they had to stop making those claims of regularity.

They had to stop making claims that it prevented cold and flu. Yeah, that's probably good. And they had to pay out $21 million to 39 state attorney generals, which I guess those are fines. I couldn't get exactly how that happened. Yeah, I'm sure it's settlements. They were sued. Well, no, I don't think they were sued.

Yeah, by the way, attorneys general. Yeah. Sorry, it was William Sapphire's ghost going through me. But they sue, like they get together and say, hey, like... I guess they were lawsuits then, I just thought they were fines. Well, either way, they had to pay out money and they had to stop overstating these things and go to more generalized claims. Which they paid out $21 million, you say?

Yeah. I mean, it may have ended up being more than that even. That's not too bad because the first year that Activity was out according to this article, it made $100 million in sales. Yeah. $21 million. Here, take it. Who cares?

But the point is, if Activity could make $100 million in sales, it's a yogurt, everybody. Yeah. $100 million in sales in the U.S. I mean, it's a yogurt. It shows, like, wow, people really want this. They want probiotics, they believe in it. But we find, after looking into it, like, whoa there, everybody, like, yes, it makes sense, we know it makes sense, and yes, yogurt can be delicious.

Well, we also know yogurt is good for you. Yeah. But we've got to get to the science of all this, and we will get to the science of this right after this, everybody. I'm Mangesh Atikular, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second-hand astrology.

And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends, and we dove in, and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good.

There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Like the Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's Cheekies from Cheekies and Chill Podcast, and I want to tell you about a really exciting episode. We're going to be talking to Nancy Rodriguez from Netflix's Love is Blind Season 3.

Looking back at your experience, were there any red flags that you think you missed? What I saw as a weakness of his, I wanted to embrace. The way I thought of it was whatever love I have from you is extra for me. Like I already love myself enough. Do I need you to validate me as a partner? Yes. Is it required for me to feel good about myself? No.

Listen to Cheekies and Chill on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, everybody's really hot and heavy to buy Activia, to take probiotic supplements. Like everyone wants this to work because the idea of friendly little bacteria getting into our tummies and tickling everything just right to make everything go well, especially like if you can't poop or something like that. Sure. Or if you're pooping a lot.

Right. Then this idea very much appeals to you. Eat some yogurt, feel better. That sounds great. That's like what food ideally is supposed to do is to make you feel better, not give you diabetes and keep you from standing up from the couch. It's supposed to like make you jump on the beach and have someone's camera broken when they take pictures of you.

It's supposed to make you poop. That's what food is supposed to do. I think that's why Activia sold as much as it did. That's why people want this stuff to work. But like I said, we have to get into the science of it. The science is there in some cases, but not nearly as far as it's being stretched at this point. Yeah, I went to the Harvard, Harvard EDU site to look at the skinny on what they found.

Right now, in 2014, mid-2014, they can pretty much say with great confidence through study, scientific study, that it can help your bowel situation, it can reduce diarrhea. Hey, man. What's your bowel situation? What's your bowel stitch? It can help you maybe if you have IBS or if you have taken antibiotics that give you diarrhea because they give me diarrhea like crazy. They've pretty much sussed that out with studies.

Yes. All those are backed up with study. Yeah. So it can help you if you have intestinal issues, it can help you. There are other intestinal issues that it's being touted to be able to help like Crohn's disease. The jury's still out on that, even though a lot of people are like, yeah, probiotics can help.

And that would make sense intuitively because the beneficial probiotics like Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus supposedly cut down on inflammation and an inflammation response, that's what Crohn's disease is. And they supposedly also can help with everything from vaginal infections to allergies, childhood allergies. All these claims are being made about probiotics and again, intuitively, they may help. They could conceivably help, but the science is not there backing it up. And that's not to say that the science is saying, no, this, we've shown that this doesn't

have an effect. Right. It's at the point where these studies are just now beginning to be carried out. So a body of study on them is starting to now be amassed in the United States at least. Yeah. It's a difficult thing to study because you have to study feces. And I think Molly wrote this. She pointed out a good point.

Even if you do study feces, and even if you do find that a certain amount of bacteria has made it all the way through into your feces, you don't necessarily know what exactly it did. Right. I mean, it had to be reported findings like I felt better or I didn't have diarrhea as long this time I took antibiotics. And there's a lot of dispute also over what constitutes an effective dose and when you're talking about probiotics, what you're taking are called colony forming units, CFUs.

And these are viable bacteria that can reproduce and spread and colonize your colon, right? So this panel of, I guess, probiotic experts, academics got together in, I think, Florida in October of 2013 and said, we've studied all the literature, we've done some meta-analysis and this is what we've concluded. And they recommend that you take no less than one billion colony forming units, CFUs. Yeah. So it's 10 to the ninth power. And like you said, Emily takes them that are like 15 billion colony forming units.

And that they also said that we need to study more particular species and strains. Right. Because if you say bephidobacterium or lactobacillus, you're talking about an entire genera of bacteria. Yeah. Like a strain or species, a genera, right? Yeah. And you can't say, oh, bephidobacterium is good for Crohn's. That's like saying red pills make you healthy.

Like what type of red pills and what do the red pills specifically do? So thanks to the Human Microbiome Project, which we've talked about before in the episode, we're starting to get a clearer picture of what constitutes a healthy gut in an average person, depending on your genetic makeup and what constitutes an unhealthy gut. And once we start to understand what a healthy gut looks more like, we can kind of enrich that environment and maybe add more bacteria to the beneficial bacteria probiotic list. Yeah. There's a researcher at the University of Colorado School of Medicine that says that

there's just a misconception out there that you're just reseeding your good bacteria that's missing. Her basic point is there's a lot of overgeneralization going on, like you were talking about with the red pill. She thinks there's a lot of potential in the future and that it could end up doing a lot of this, but the notion of, you know, you're reseeding your bacteria and it's good for you and that's all you need to know is just a big oversimplification of what's going on.

Right. And like you said, the different strains and what's good for one person might not be as good for another. Right. It's like super specific. But the two genera, Bephidobacterium and Lactobacillus, have been shown to the reason they're considered probiotics is because they are not necessarily going in and recolonizing your gut, like those things are present.

But again, the healthy microbiome we're starting to understand is just this huge grab bag that can change from person to person from race to race, basically. But those two specifically, those two genera specifically, have effects on things like your immune system. Like they spur the production of immunoglobin A or beta-defensin, which are both immune proteins that go after pathogens. So they help with your immune system. These two things do specifically.

Yeah. That's what you want to look for those two. Right. And those are the two main players anyway. Like if you're going to get a probiotic, you're probably going to find those. Right. But not coincidentally, those are also the ones that were discovered a hundred something years ago and have been studied in one form or fashion ever since.

So as we start to come across more potentially good bacteria from the human microbiome project, they'll be studied in more detail and we'll get a better idea of this particular strain of this species, of this genera, is probably good for this. Right. Yeah. And then there's the whole thing of prebiotics, which we should talk about right after this. I'm Mangesha Tickler. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been

a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop.

But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey guys. It's Chikis from Chikis and Chill Podcast, and I want to tell you about a really exciting episode. We're going to be talking to Nancy Rodriguez from Netflix's Love is Blind Season 3. Looking back at your experience, were there any red flags that you think you missed? What I saw as a weakness of his, I wanted to embrace. The way I thought of it was, whatever love I have from you is extra for me. I really love myself enough.

Do I need you to validate me as a partner? Yes. Is it required for me to feel good about myself? No. Listen to Chikis and Chill on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay. So you're in the store and you want to get something good for your gut because you've

been pooping, you've had diarrhea, and you just got general trouble with your stomach. Malays forever. Malays forever. You go in and you see probiotics, and you think, hey, I've heard of those on the news. Jamie Lee Curtis is dancing on the beach, coding herself with yogurt, and she's doing great. But this prebiotic, what in the world is that? That is not the same.

Prebiotic spurs this growth of these bacteria. It's like food for probiotics. Yes. Instead of a probiotic, which is the actual bacteria you're ingesting, prebiotics will help them grow. Yes. You're giving it a nourishing environment to grow in. You can take them both at the same time.

Yes. There's something called symbiotics, which is prebiotic and the probiotic. So it's the food and the thing that eats the food all mixed together, and things like yogurt, kefir, kimchi, miso, sauerkraut, fermented foods like that. They have it naturally. Those are symbiotics. They have both. And prebiotics, it's kind of just fiber in a lot of cases, dietary fiber that they like

to eat and ferment. All right, well, we talked earlier about you don't know exactly how much you're getting in some of these foods. That's a problem because you don't know what dosage you need. You don't know how much is six because these things are, that's why there's 15 billion of them in a tiny little pill. They die very easily. And through packaging and shipping, you don't know how much you're going to be getting in

the end. Yes. Not in the end. You know what I mean? If you go into a health food store or something, right, and they have probiotics, they might have some that are refrigerated, but then they have some on the shelf and like, what's the difference? Yeah.

Well, the ones on the shelf have undergone a process of freeze drying. Yeah. They're basically in cryonic suspenders, suspended animation right now. And it protects them being in that state. Yeah. They're frozen in carbonate. Basically. Yeah.

So they're from exposure to, if they're exposed to heat or cold or moisture, although not moisture, once they're exposed to moisture, they come back and they're in trouble unless they're in your tummy. Gremlins. But so those have been freeze dried. The ones that are in the refrigerator are likely not freeze dried and they're much more fragile. Yeah. That's what Emily's are refrigerated and expensive.

Well, yeah, because it costs a lot more to take care of them, to keep them in a state of life so that they can have an effect. The problem is, is when you buy those at the store, you have no idea of what you're buying is the real deal or not because, like you said, the FDA isn't regulating this. True, but there, you can do a little research and find out like, you know, I don't think there's a ton of snake oil out there, is there? Well, so I read this article from consumerlab.com. Was it called snake oil as probiotic?

No, it was, it was basically, it was saying like, in 2009, they did a random sample of probiotics on the market and 85% didn't have the advertised amount of bacteria in it. Because they had died off some? For whatever reason. Yeah. Because that's the thing, like let's say I sell you a bunch of bacteria and you're going to put them into pills, but you don't, you know, man, I got some phyto bacterium, I got lactobacillus.

How much? What do you, what do you want? How much? We'll talk later. I'll give you a good deal. All right. So, but you, you don't invest in. Better not be like that last batch.

This one's, this one's even better, man. All right, cool. I had them died me on green for you. All right. You can do something with that. But they have like vacuum machines that you, you deal with this, this bacteria and put it in a pill form or whatever. Let's say you don't invest in that, you just run it through a regular pill machine.

All right. All the bacteria dies. Even if you know that's dead, you can still slap that in and be like, there's 50 billion CFUs in each pill. Yeah. Come get it. Come get it. Knowing they're dead, nothing's going to happen to you.

You're not running a foul of the FDA so long as you're not saying, and this stuff can cure your Crohn's disease. Because all the FDA is concerned with is your claims to what your product can do. Now whether that stuff's in there. Right. Yeah. I will say this. I often find myself buying them for her because I'm an errand boy.

At the health food store, they have very boring labels. They look more like medicines. And they say, you know, 15,000 or 15 billion, sorry, 15,000. 15,000. Wow. It's all listed on the label. I went to get her, recently I was at a big chain grocery store and she said, hey, I'm out.

Just see what they have there. And I knew what they would have the stuff that the health food store had. But I perused. And what you find in the grocery store are major brands selling what to me looks like a bunch of BS. Yeah. For sure. I mean, why not?

If people want to buy $100 million worth of Activia and you're a supplementary, then you're a supplement manufacturer, why wouldn't you get in on that? You already know the ins and outs of the federal regulations and here, sucker, buy this. That's the problem. And even with the good stuff that you trust at the health food store, it's not necessarily snake oil. It is probably made in earnest. But the key is, it may have undergone, like the refrigerator truck may be down on the

way and the whole batch was ruined, they're still going to sell it. And they'll still, there's no repercussion and you will have no idea whether it's effective or not. That's why we need probiotics probably do work. But we have to figure out how much is the right amount and how to deliver that amount in a way that is going to basically stay effective throughout the production and transportation and distribution segments. Yeah.

Some kind of regulations. And then when it hits your stomach, it's going to survive your stomach and then dissolve in your gut, which is what's supposed to happen. Yeah. So we're just not quite there yet. No. But that doesn't mean that those probiotics that you trust don't actually work. They very well may work.

Yeah. And the consensus that everyone agrees on is you're not going to hurt yourself by taking probiotics. Right. There have been studies that have shown like if you're a healthy person, it may not do anything for you, but it's probably not going to hurt you, but there was one big exception with pancreatitis. In this article, there's a study that cited to where a group of people who had pancreatitis,

300 patients with pancreatitis, some received probiotics, others received a placebo, and even with everything else being equal, all things being equal, the people who were taking probiotics, 24 of them died, which is twice the number of the deaths in the placebo group, which is just weird. That is weird. And then also, if you have a lowered or compromised immune system, you probably should avoid probiotics, is the other warning that I came across. I've also seen that it could possibly maybe help with not getting cancer, but you shouldn't

take them if you're getting cancer treatment. But I don't know if that's right on either. I haven't heard that one. Some Canadians have researched and they think, and see, it's still the Wild West, like we said, there are so many claims that they think might, like in 10 years, this would be a completely different show. But researchers in Canada have linked supplements to lower levels of anxiety and stress. And this past December, the British Journal of Nutrition found that women supplementing

their diet were more likely to lose weight compared to the placebo. Again, like there's that whole... But that could be correlation too, you never know. But it makes sense, because there's that mind-gut connection where the vast majority of our serotonin is produced in our gut and travels up to our brain. Yeah. Well, that's what the Canadians are thinking exactly that as far as stress reduction. They're thinking that's a two-way street there.

So what do you do in the meantime? Buy the yogurt and just take a bath in it. That's one thing you can do. If you have some, especially if you have some sort of gut-related disease or condition, find peer-reviewed academic articles on what probiotics may or may not work for that condition and then try that. Go find the best ones you can find or the ones that you trust the most. And the National Institutes of Health actually has a pretty open-minded probiotics page,

but at least the one on Lactobacillus gives recommended doses for different, I guess, bowel conditions. Yeah. I bet you it's probably not the hardest thing to get some funding for studying this stuff right now. Yeah, really? It's probably a good time to be in that research. The microbiome is so hot right now.

Yeah. They're doing... I mean, they're testing all kinds of things. The lady from Colorado said that they've done studies in rodents that suggest that certain microbes might mitigate a high-fat diet, so maybe it could help treat obesity. Who knows? Who knows? It's... This is one we should definitely follow up on with studio show notes. Oh, we will, man.

In a year. Okay. If we're still doing that show. We are, by God. Got it? Yeah. I got nothing else. They won't hurt you.

They could help. Give it a try. Although, again, if you have pancreatitis, look into it. Yeah. Compromise the immune system. And again, I suggest to not... If you really want to see if it works, go to the nutrition health food store, spend a little money on the real deal. Don't buy the little box at your grocery store that has a lot of pictures of people smiling

and things. Actually, I know. Okay. Wise words from Chuck. Yeah. If you want to know more about probiotics, you can type that word in the search bar at howstofworks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail.

This is an archaeologist wrote in to say we did a good job. Nice. Guys, I'm so relieved. My faith is maintained. I always knew you weren't experts. But you do do a lot of research. And so I take things you say with a pinch of salt. But you were really spot on with my field of expertise with archaeology.

And I'm going to trust you more from now on. Since university, I've done digs, the Viking Age in New York, the Tala Yolkic Bronze Age in Mallorca, and the Hellenic Byzantine period in Georgia, so he's done a lot of digs. He's touting his digs. I've encountered many different archaeological methods, and from now on I think I'll refer them to your podcast, though you only use the example of excavating by meter square holes, which always causes a single tear to roll down my cheek when an entire site is done like that.

You also mentioned the B word, brush, which must never be spoken of, let alone used on a dig. It smears what you're excavating and makes it hard to see. So apparently they don't brush. Maybe I bet it's air, candier or something. Oh yeah. Let's go. Yeah, exactly.

Movies get it wrong, man, because everyone uses a brush in the movies. Everybody knows that. Maybe this guy's getting it wrong. It's more movies. Overall though, guys, I give you 9 out of 10. You covered all the important bits like uniformitarianism, the conflict between civil engineers and archaeologists at a development, illegal antiquities, and the thorny issue of returning artifacts to their country of origin.

Was that repatriation? You even got the Nazis in there. I can't tell you about Aryans or North Germanic peoples, as I'm hardly an expert and don't want to muddy the waters, but one of my lecturers told us that the first non-combat unit into Stalingrad in the Second World War were the SS archaeologists. They were digging a Bronze Age burial mound and earshot of the siege guns. So that is all the best from Will, the archaeologist in Sussex, England. And not a fan of brushes.

I'm sorry, he says Sussex, UK. Yeah, yeah. He just dodged the bullet there. That was close. Thanks a lot, Will. I'm glad we gained your trust or it was fortified by our archaeology episode, which I think both of us liked. That was a good one.

It was. If you want to let us know how we regained your trust or gained it or it was fortified or whatever, who cares? Just let us know, whatever you want to let us know. You can tweet to us at SYSK Podcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. And as always, send us an email to stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com and as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.

I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Find a Skyline drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. And to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.