![]() ![]() So far, their preliminary results, which they hope to publish in the future, line up fairly well with what’s advertised on the pill bottles. Because the probiotic pill bottles specify what bacterial strains are inside, Buerger and Smith prepared the dishes according to those species’ preferences. There, they cracked open the pills, diluted the bacterial powder stuffed inside, and dabbed the mix onto petri dishes. (Yemi Osayame, CAS ’19, joined the project this fall.) So, they headed to the drugstore, filled up their shopping baskets, and brought their probiotic haul back to Buerger’s lab. Sandra Buerger, a lecturer in natural science and mathematics at Boston University’s College of General Studies, and Alexander Smith (CGS’19), supported by a grant from the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning, wanted to find out. But do the supplements actually contain what the labels promise, and how do they compare to fermented foods, like kombucha or miso soup, which are also teeming with microbes? Some doctors recommend that patients take them when they are prescribed broad-spectrum antibiotics, which wipe out good and bad bacteria alike, and millions of consumers buy them hoping for relief from gastrointestinal problems or to support general good health. Manufacturers claim that these pills (or gummies or powdered drink packets) contain billions of live bacteria. That’s the big idea behind the shelf full of “probiotic” supplements at your local pharmacy or grocery store. Beneficial gut bacteria-and there are trillions of them in the typical human digestive system-help digest and extract nutrients from everything we eat, and they can also crowd out the bad-guy bacteria that make us sick. Now, researchers are realizing that bacteria can play the good guys, too. ![]() ![]() For more than a century, bacteria have been typecast as villainous bodily invaders in the stomach-churning, fever-inducing drama of infectious disease. ![]()
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