What is Bifidus Regularis?

Food Politics blog on health claims for yoghurts

admin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:53:10 +0000

I like yogurt. But do probiotics – those “friendly” bacteria in yogurt and increasingly added to other foods – do anything for you beyond making yogurt taste good? I wrote about probiotics in What to Eat at some length. Tara Parker-Pope has a quick summary of the state of the research in today’s New York Times.

The quick answer is mixed. It includes a lot of “maybe” or “probably,” always a sign that whatever probiotics might do isn’t going to be much. The answer is probably yes for infant diarrhea and, maybe, irritable bowel syndrome, and maybe or no for just about everything else.

In the absence of FDA action to regulate misleading health claims, lawyers have jumped into the breach. They have just won a large class-action settlement – $35 million – against Dannon for claiming that Activia yogurt promotes immunity. According to one news account, Dannon spent $100 million marketing the immunity-promoting effects of Activia ignoring the results of its own company-sponsored research which inconveniently showed few benefits. (Did they not pay enough for the research?).

Read the full article : Health claims for yogurt? Really?

New York Times – certain probiotics can reduce diarrohea

admin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:48:42 +0000

Funny that this article suggests that some probiotics can prevent diarrhoea, when the advertising seems to hint much more at alleviating “bloating” – which implies constipation rather than diarrhoea…

Read the full article : Probiotics: Looking Underneath the Yogurt Label

Infinite Thought gets to “Y” in her alphabet – Yoghurt

admin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:43:45 +0000

This is the sort of yoghurt whose advertisement features middle-class women drinking coffee from a cafetiere and complaining in a sharing sort of way that they feel bloated all the time. Now, I know that this feeling of bloatedness comes from living like a lobotomised, over-propertied seal at the end of history rather than from not eating enough yoghurt, but I suppose they had to flog it somehow. It’s probably full of sugar and poison anyway, but it’s got a green label so it must be better than that pink-packaged petit filou stuff that really posh children like to eat with tiny spoons, the sort used to bash in the brains of cooked quails or something.

More here

Probiotics may be useful in some medical settings, and may be extremely harmful in others

admin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:35:50 +0000

BBC Radio 4’s Case Notes talks to Chakravarthi Rajkumar, Professor of Geriatrics and Stroke Medicine at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, who has a special interest in the use of probiotics to reduce some of the unwanted side effects of antibiotics in his elderly patients.

Marnie Chesterton reports from Utrect in the Netherlands, where trials using probiotics on patients with severe acute pancreatitis had some worrying results.

Listen to the programme here

Dannon To Pay $35 Million To Eaters Of Activia And DanActive Yogurts

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:43:10 +0000

Here’s an interesting story in terms of the wording of Dannon’s health claims for their DanActive yoghurt – but the compromise wording seems in many ways more misleading. At least the statement that DanActive has “a positive effect on your digestive tract’s immune system” is something that can be proved or disproved with research – and the court in effect ruled that it hadn’t been proved. But that DanActive will “interact with your digestive tract’s immune system” is true of anything. You could eat mud and it would interact with your digestive tract’s immune system – it’s a meaningless phrase. Which means that the word “immune” is only in there to suggest some kind of non-specific link between the yoghurt and the consumer’s immune system.

The class-action lawsuit against Dannon alleging false advertising of their Activia and DanActive products has finally been settled. As you may recall (but probably don’t), the suit was filed back in January 2008, and accused the company of advertising yogurt-induced health benefits that may or may not actually exist.

As part of the settlement, the company agreed to make changes to the labeling and advertising of Activia and DanActive by increasing the visibility of the scientific names of the “probiotic” cultures in the yogurts, court documents said. Dannon also agreed to remove the word “immunity” from its DanActive products.

DanActive labels that say the yogurt has “a positive effect on your digestive tract’s immune system” will be reworded to say the yogurt will “interact with your digestive tract’s immune system.”

Full story

If you go to www.csgrr.com/dannon you can claim part of a $35 million fund set up by Dannon to pay out to people who believe they were the victims of Dannon falsely advertising the health benefits of eating their yoghurts.

'Healthy' yogurt advert banned

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:38:57 +0000

A TV advert which asserted that Actimel yogurt supported children’s natural defences against disease has been banned by the advertising watchdog.

The Advertising Standards Authority ruled that claims that it could help protect school-age youngsters against illness were not supported by evidence.

Full story