The best live cultures for men aren’t the same as the best live cultures for women. Just like there are special supplements that cater to women, there are also special supplements that cater to men, this includes live cultures. This is why it’s important to choose the right live cultures for guys, and this article will help you do just that.
How To Pick The Best Live Cultures For Men
The number of live culture supplements out there can make your head spin. Researching various products, reading customer reviews, and comparing prices and value for money will eat up a LOT of time. So, to help narrow down your research, we’ve written an in-depth guide on the 7 factors for choosing the best live cultures.
That being said, there is one live culture supplement that meets all these criteria – our Intelligent Labs Adult Live Cultures & Fibre supplement.
Here’s a summary table comparing the 7 factors and our dietary supplement:
| 7 Factors for Best Live Cultures | Intelligent Labs Live Cultures supplement |
| #1 – Supplement strength (in terms of CFU) | We can guarantee 50 billion CFU by the time you use the supplement. This is because we actually fill each capsule with 150 billion CFU at the time of manufacture! |
| #2 – The number of CFU’s per bacterial strain | We use 10 strains in our supplement, with each strain numbering around 5 billion CFU. Hence the 50 billion CFU. |
| #3 – The use of well-researched, patented live culture strains | We use a proprietary blend of L. acidophilus La-14, L. casei Lc-11, L. paracasei Lpc-37, L. plantarum Lp-115, L. rhamnosus Lr-32, L. lactis Ll-23, B. bifidum Bb-06, B. breve Bb-03, B. lactis Bl-04, and B. longum Bl-05. These live culture strains are specially selected for their stability, and acid and bile resistance. |
| #4 – The supplement capsule should be enteric-coated or delayed-release to help live cultures reach your gut alive | We use active packaging technology with delayed-release veggie capsules. |
| #5 – The best live cultures for men need NO refrigeration | Our live cultures supplement need no refrigeration. |
| #6 – Fibre should be included, so the live cultures don’t go hungry and die off | Each capsule includes Sunfiber and FOS. |
| #7 – Third-party testing has been done on the supplement | We have 3rd party, independent lab testing done on our live cultures supplement for adults. |
Why Men Should Take Live Cultures
There are more than 100 trillion microorganisms – both good and bad – that reside in our gut. To prevent bad bacteria from taking over, it’s important to eat or ingest more of the good guys, a.k.a. live cultures. These live cultures are beneficial microorganisms that restore balance in the gut and help improve your health.
You can take live cultures from fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, pickles, kimchi, sauerkraut, and more. But in order to truly take advantage of all the amazing benefits of live cultures, you’ll need to eat a ton of these fermented foods on a daily basis. I don’t know about you, but eating the same foods over and over doesn’t sound like a lot of fun to me.
Fortunately, live culture supplements do exist, so you can get a steady supply of these live cultures for your gut health in a convenient capsule or tablet form. That being said, it’s important for men – and everyone really – to take live cultures daily.
Here’s how these friendly bacteria can help with male health:
Gut health
If you’re currently taking antibiotics, then you’ve probably experienced one of its side effects – diarrhoea. Fortunately, live cultures do a pretty good job of treating antibiotic-associated diarrhoea (1). And if you’re asking will the antibiotics kill off the live cultures, the answer is yes. So make sure you take your live cultures supplement 2 hours after you take antibiotics to maintain balance in your gut microbiome.
Another study determined that multi-strain live culture supplements taken over 8 weeks or more can help improve Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) symptoms (2).
If constipation is a problem for you, live cultures may also help increase bowel movements, so expect more productive trips to the toilet (3).
Live cultures are also beneficial for those with ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease that creates sores in the large intestine (4).
Respiratory health
Antihistamines are effective at treating allergies, but they can sometimes cause drowsiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, and other side effects. A number of studies point to live cultures as an alternative treatment option for allergic rhinitis (5) and other upper respiratory tract infections (6).
Cardiovascular health
In a meta-analysis done by Wang et al., they found that the total cholesterol levels of people who took live culture supplements were much lower than those who didn’t (7).
Furthermore, live cultures were also shown to have hypotensive effects. It helped lower blood pressure and maintain healthy blood pressure as well (8). This is great news because lower blood pressure means there’s less possibility of getting a stroke and heart attack.
Weight loss
Several studies have been done on live culture strains that help with weight loss. However, at this point, it’s important to mention that not all strains are equal. Some strains like Lactobacillus fermentum (9), Lactobacillus amylovorus (9), Lactobacillus rhamnosus (10), and Lactobacillus gasseri (11) helped participants lose weight and belly fat. So, keep these live culture strains in mind if losing weight is a goal for you.
Sexual health
Erectile dysfunction (ED) is probably the last thing you’d think a live culture supplement can help you with. There are many reasons why ED happens, but if it’s due to physical causes like high cholesterol and high blood pressure, then live cultures may help resolve your problem (7, 8).
If your ED is due to high blood sugar and high insulin levels, or even type II diabetes, then live culture supplementation may be the key to treating your condition. This is because live cultures have been shown to significantly improve insulin sensitivity, fasting blood glucose, and improve the overall health condition of diabetics (12).
To know more about the many benefits of these gut-friendly bacteria, read our Ultimate Supplement Guide on Live Cultures.
What To Expect From Taking Live Cultures
Some notable side effects include gas build-up. This is sometimes referred to as bloating or increased flatulence. This happens because bacteria produce gas, especially when they’re multiplying. Some may also experience mild abdominal discomfort.
This effect of taking live cultures might be slightly unpleasant at first, but as the body grows accustomed to a daily intake of living bacteria, any side effects should ease soon.
Final Thoughts
Live culture supplements are flying off the shelves nowadays. With so many studies supporting all the amazing health benefits of live cultures, everyone – man, woman, child – should supplement their healthy diet with this supplement. Of course, there’s not a one size fits all approach to live cultures, so before you take any (even ours!) we highly recommend you speak with your primary care physician first.
References
(1) Blaabjerg, Sara et al. “Probiotics for the Prevention of Antibiotic-Associated Diarrhea in Outpatients-A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) vol. 6,4 21. 12 Oct. 2017, doi:10.3390/antibiotics6040021
(2) Dale, Hanna Fjeldheim et al. “Probiotics in Irritable Bowel Syndrome: An Up-to-Date Systematic Review.” Nutrients vol. 11,9 2048. 2 Sep. 2019, doi:10.3390/nu11092048
(3) Dimidi E, Christodoulides S, Fragkos KC, Scott SM, Whelan K. The effect of probiotics on functional constipation in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2014; 100(4): 1075-1084.
(4) Mark B. van der Waal, Joost Flach, Pamela D. Browne, Isolde Besseling-van der Vaart, Eric Claassen, Linda H.M. van de Burgwal, (2019) ‘Probiotics for improving quality of life in ulcerative colitis: Exploring the patient perspective’, PharmaNutrition, 7(), pp. [Online]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phanu.2018.100139.
(5) Yang, Gui et al. “Treatment of allergic rhinitis with probiotics: an alternative approach.” North American journal of medical sciences vol. 5,8 (2013): 465-8. doi:10.4103/1947-2714.117299
(6) Hao Q, Dong BR, Wu T. Probiotics for preventing acute upper respiratory tract infections. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2015, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD006895. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD006895.pub3.
(7) Wang, Lang et al. “The effects of probiotics on total cholesterol: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.” Medicine vol. 97,5 (2018): e9679. doi:10.1097/MD.0000000000009679
(8) Upadrasta, Aditya, and Ratna Sudha Madempudi. “Probiotics and blood pressure: current insights.” Integrated blood pressure control vol. 9 33-42. 25 Feb. 2016, doi:10.2147/IBPC.S73246
(9) Jaclyn M. Omar, Yen-Ming Chan, Mitchell L. Jones, Satya Prakash, Peter J.H. Jones, (2013) ‘Lactobacillus fermentum and Lactobacillus amylovorus as probiotics alter body adiposity and gut microflora in healthy persons’, Journal of Functional Foods, 5(1), pp. [Online]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jff.2012.09.001.
(10) Sanchez, Marina et al. “Effect of Lactobacillus rhamnosus CGMCC1.3724 supplementation on weight loss and maintenance in obese men and women.” The British journal of nutrition vol. 111,8 (2014): 1507-19. doi:10.1017/S0007114513003875
(11) Kadooka, Y et al. “Regulation of abdominal adiposity by probiotics (Lactobacillus gasseri SBT2055) in adults with obese tendencies in a randomized controlled trial.” European journal of clinical nutrition vol. 64,6 (2010): 636-43. doi:10.1038/ejcn.2010.19
(12) Kesika, Periyanaina et al. “Do Probiotics Improve the Health Status of Individuals with Diabetes Mellitus? A Review on Outcomes of Clinical Trials.” BioMed research international vol. 2019 1531567. 14 Dec. 2019, doi:10.1155/2019/1531567
