This is a very interesting poster that won the Presidential Award at The American College of Gastroenterology #ACG2023 conference held this week.
The authors tested the microbial composition of 26 commercially available probiotic foods using metagenomic sequencing. Although most of these contained Lactobacillus or Streptococcus spp, only five of those contained detectable levels of Bifidobacterium spp.
The poster concludes that most of the labels of these probiotic foods are misleading.
However, the authors do not describe what those labels actually said. Not all food labeled as probiotic claim to contain Bifidobacteria, so without this information it might be hard to know if the labels on these products indeed were misleading.
Probiotic foods such as yogurt or sauerkraut might not contain or claim to contain Bifidobacteria at all. Yogurts, sauerkraut, kefir, etc. usually contain Lactobacillus spp and – depending on the product – other probiotic strains such as Streptococcus, Leuconostoc, Bacillus, and Lactococcus species.
In summary, the authors’ claim that ‘These results point to the inaccuracy in labeling of probiotic foods since only 5/26 had presence of Bifidobacteria’ can only be accurate if all 26 products indeed claimed to contain Bifidobacteria. Can the authors please clarify if all 26 tested products claimed they contained Bifidobacterium spp?
I am also surprised to see the statement ‘Lack of presence of Bifidobacteria […] will make the product ineffective’. Are the authors claiming that a probiotic food item without Bifidobacterium is ineffective? And that all probiotics with Bifidobacterium are effective? These are big statements that are far from proven.
I look forward to hearing the authors’ reply.