Bifidus Actiregularis, Bifidus Regularis, Bifidus Digestivum, Bifidobacterium Lactis and its variants are marketing names generated by Danone (known in the United States of America as Dannon) for one of the specific bacteria it uses in its “Activia” range of yoghurt products.
According to a reply received from Dannon by the Writerious blog, Bifidus Regularis (and therefore presumably all the variations of Bifidus…) is a proprietary strain of Bifidobacterium.
The source of “Bifidus” is from the intestinal bacterium Bifidobacterium animalis, a kind of bacteria found in the large intestines of most mammals, including humans. “Actiregularis” is an invented word, the first half of which which emphasises the active nature of the bacteria. In common with with Bifidus Regularis, the “regularis” part emphasises being “regular” and the “is” at the end suggests a scientific derivation. The bacteria is known as Bifidus Actiregularis in UK marketing materials and Bifidus Regularis in marketing materials from the USA.
Bifidus Actiregularis used to be called Bifidus Digestivum in UK marketing materials. “Digestivum” is an invented word which uses “digestive” as a root to suggest beneficial effects on digestion, combined with the latinate ending “um” to suggest a scientific derivation.
It is known as Bifidobacterium Lactis in Canadian marketing materials, where Lactis uses the Latin root for milk (“lac” / “lact-“) and “is” to suggest a scientific derivation.
It is known as “Digestivum Essensis” in German and Austrian marketing materials. These are both invented words, the first emphasising digestion and the second emphasising the “essential” nature of the nutrition, using latinate endings to suggest a scientific derivation.
The name of the bacteria changes from country to country and over time, to reflect differences in marketing strategy and consumer behaviour. One suggestion for the change in the UK from Bifidus Digestivum from Bifidus Actiregularis is that Bifidus Digestivum was so ridiculed it become a liability – do a Google search for Bifidus Digestivum to see the results.
The scientifically correct name for the bacteria is “Bifidobacterium animalis DN 173 010”.
The BBC has recorded an excellent radio programme about gut bacteria, including a discussion of the fundamental uncertainty about the very specific advertised claims for probiotics.
Read more about probiotics, prebiotics, and intestinal flora, Danone’s marketing strategy and what’s in Activia, Danactive and Actimel using the More information menu on the right.
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If you watch the part on the commercial where it says “Bifidus Regularis”, you can see the TM sign next to it.
Posted by Ichigo on 5th April 2010
I have to see these commercials on a daily basis, and its all genuine garbage. Notice that all the testemonials on TV are always fluent? If they really pulled people who tried the product and had it work, would be a bit nervous or camerashy. These people are like actors/actresses. Try harder next time.
Posted by Fawxy aka Technic on 4th April 2010
Posted by William on 27th March 2010…
Hahaha! So agree with you here! Yogurt has live cultures as it is. People will eat yogurt if they like it, period. No gimmicks.
Posted by MPickles on 1st April 2010
Instead of Dannon, try Chobani yogurt. It’s delicious! Check out http://chobani.com/about. Also Stoneyfield Farms has organic, real ingredients. You can buy both at Publix or Kroger. Get the plain and add your own fresh fruit if you like.
Posted by Nesha on 29th March 2010
Bifidus Regularis, Who is the wall street moron who came up with this one? It’s legit if it has a Latin name? Common guys. I know that Americans are pretty stupid, but for the love of God give us a break. You don’t have to add to the problem with a bull…. name like that. Multi-retardo.
Posted by William on 27th March 2010
Bifidus Regularis was trumped up to con the uneducated into thinking they were listening to bio-medical terminology. I’d rather be impacted than eat anything Jamie Lee Curtis would endorse. She is so full of it literally. Just promoting a product with a made up name like Bifidus Regularis speaks volumes about her ethics. The name is utterly insulting to the rest of us and I haven’t purchased their products in years because of this.
Posted by Dalene on 25th March 2010
I knew also that bifidus regularis (cant spell without looking at it) was a made up name. But since I like most yogurts and have bad constipation decided to try Activia. Along with stool softners and an exlax every other day, the Activia seems to work. It may be only the exlax and ss but the Activia tastes really good. I eat the strawberry, blueberry and peach and they are equally tasteful whether the “light” or the regular (regularis ? lol) Any way thats my 2 cents worth. I dont work for Dannon either.
Posted by sue on 21st March 2010
Isn’t it just a case of it being ‘live yoghurt’ and the companies thinking people will thuik ‘yuk’ if it’s just got live bacteria in it. So they spent millions getting the marketing team to come up with a name that sounds positive and likeable.
Does anyone else think it makes it all sound like Soylent Green
Posted by Diesel on 20th March 2010
Such negative comments on soe have of what I read. I mean, it works for some and it dont for some. Maybe it doesnt work for you because your body is different. It doesnt give you the right to cut down the product.
Ever heard of “If you aint got anything nice to say, dont say anything at all???”
Posted by from Hawaii on 18th March 2010
For 6 years I have suffered with chronic Pseudo Intestinal Blockage. I was at the point where I was advised to have my colon removed and had hit rock bottom and was scratching around to see if I could get any lower! At one point I hadn’t opened my bowels for four weeks! The final roll of the dice was advice from my Gastroenterologist to try two pots of plain Activia a day. I ate two pots before bed for four weeks and nothing happened. Then in the fifth week I suddenly started opening my bowels again! Every day! The first time I had done so in 6 years. Coincidence maybe? That’s what I thought so I stopped the activia for a week and guess what, my bowels stopped working again. Activia is not a marketing gimmick for me. It’s given me my life back! I am a walking success story for this product’s effectiveness. Everybody has their own opinion but for me and my body, I reiterate, bifidusregularis works. Make of that what you will.
Posted by Willy on 15th March 2010
I almost laughed myself silly when I first heard the commercial for this yogurt. I remember growing up and my mother saying that she had to go to the biffy, and I connected the two together (regularly going biffy). I laugh every time this commercial comes on that they think we are so dumb that we don’t know that Bifidus regularis is going to the biffy regularly.
Posted by Kathy Maxwell on 15th March 2010
Oops, I forgot to respond to Margaret’s comment about not going swimming because she’s “a little irregular”. I don’t think she meant she was constipated–I think she may have meant the opposite. Oooooooh, maybe she’s taking that Alli stuff–ya know–the one where you have to be near a bathroom at all times!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Claire on 14th March 2010
Not only yogurt companies but pharmaceutical companies also make up names–for medications that imply the effects they are hoping for with the drugs, e.g., Ad(v)air adds air, Nature-throid suggests natural thyroid, Concerta for concentration, etc., etc. (amazing the capacity of my mind to ignore completely the products being advertised even though I remember the visuals accompanying the ads!) That said, Marybeth I suspect that the congestion and coughing is the effect of using maybe more dairy product than usual, and perhaps a sensitivity to one of the specific additives in Activia. I would disagree that all regular yogurts provide the same benefits as Activia simply because not all yogurts provide much in the way of active bacterial ingredients, and most have tons of added sugar (often on top of the fruit included in the product). There are brands of yogurt that are basically plain, unsweetened yogurt with tons of live bacterial cultures–that probably do as good a job, or better, than Activia and the alternative, as George suggested, is to take a good brand of probiotics as a supplement. What we will likely never see is a study comparing Activia to other brands of yogurts containing live cultures, which would be the only way to establish any superiority over those brands. As for the young girls reading the labels, at least they’re reading them and watching for the nasties (e.g., high fructose corn syrup, etc.) instead of buying only on the basis of seeing a TV commercial. Funny that I can tolerate actresses selling make-up without batting an eyelid but an actress I respect selling a yogurt that doesn’t compare with some of the more natural and honest brands out there just irritates the bifidus out of me!
Posted by Claire on 14th March 2010
My favorite Dannon commercial was the one where the women are sitting around a pool and one woman asks another why she’s not swimming. the answer? “i’m a little irregular.” I almost fall out of my chair laughing. She won’t go swimming because she hasn’t pooped yet? How stupid do they think we are?
Posted by margaret on 13th March 2010
I don’t understand most of the comments here, simply mocking the name or ad gimmicks. The fact is, for both myself and my son, that Activia has worked wonders for our IBS and has given us our lives back. The funny thing is that this is marketed towards people with Constipation and our problem was the opposite. Gimmicks or not, this stuff works when none of the other yogurts have for me, and I have tried them all. Thanks
Brett
Posted by Brett on 13th March 2010
I am so glad someone invented a product to help me GO! I wonder how all the other generations before us survived without it ?? same B.S. as the magic Colon cleanser and I’m sure the same type of people that buy that fall for this ! Good diet is all anyone needs , it has worked for thousands of years before they made this yogurt with the magic regularis in it ………………………… To funny, I love the marketing crap that they think I will fall for ………………
Posted by Larry on 12th March 2010
I purchased Activia, not on purpose, but because it was the only vanilla-flavored yogurt per my husbands request, in my store at the time…So i ate it and have had adverse reaction: dizziness, fatigue, nausea, and overall flu-like symptoms. So I stopped eating it for a week, felt better, then ate the rest of it only to experience the same symptoms. I totally feel poisoned. There must be some chemically engineered component to this terrible product. There is no way this product is a natural food item.
Posted by Kim Allum on 12th March 2010
So Bifidus Regularis helps you get to the Biff Regularly? Nice. Do pork & beans contain gaseous maximus?
Posted by moecal on 10th March 2010
LOVED THE LINGUISTICS!!!! There is more intelligent use of linguistics to cleverly drive home a point in these blogs than that created by the (I’m sure) expensive advertising firm hired by Dannon to insult our intelligence in order to get our money. I would call that a bit fraudulis and dishonestus.
The baby-boomers were the last to get any semblence of a good education, are now retiring and are the largest purchasing group. Dannon executives must be younger and less educated than that group. they should have done a test of the market with some baby boomers before publicly showing their stupidity. They are the fools who parted with their money to an expensive advertising firm and Jamie Lee Curtis. She must broke to agree to do such a commercial.
Posted by Great Posts on 9th March 2010
I have only been eating Activia for the past week or so. Since I have had my Implant taken out I have been suffering real bad with blockages. Since starting Activia, things are running better!
When I first saw the ad with Bifidus what ever I thought they were going in a Harry Potter direction! So I just had to google the meaning of it!
Posted by Debbi on 8th March 2010
Why didn’t they call their patented secret ingredient “B.S.” I’m sure if you dug through some, you would find something very similar to Bifidus Regularis.
What a joke. A testimony to the idiocy of the typical consumer who believes everything they see on TV.
Posted by JFrykman on 8th March 2010
LMAO Or did someone already say this.
Posted by opalus crocombulas on 2nd March 2010
LMAO
Posted by opalus crocombulas on 2nd March 2010
never thought I’d get so much out of a blog on Bifidus Regularis. Love it. Good to see people still get fired up about things and read into things. I thought the Activia was a bit “fishy”. Including the fact that I noticed the Activia had fructose sugar in it. I think I’ll swap the man-made “Regularis” stuff for old fashioned real food.
Posted by Likes the facts on 23rd February 2010
so… I guess any yogurt will do!!!!!!!!! that’s what I figured
Posted by Anonymous on 22nd February 2010
I was having intestinal and digestive problems after a colonoscopy. I explained the syptems to my gastrologist . He started writting something on a piece of paper and said, “I ‘m writting you a prescription for that.”
On the the paper he had written, “Activia once a day for 14 days.”
LOL..It worked just fine..Thank you Dr.
Posted by Rob on 18th February 2010
The names may be made up, but I can tell a difference. Beginning in January I changed my eating habits to include lots of fruits and vegetables each day, 3-4 and 5-6 servings respectively. I also consume 2 tablespoons of ground flax seed and 2 cups of yogurt daily. I also jog 4-5 times a week. Oddly enough, my bowel habits changed for the worse compared to my previous low-fiber, high-fat diet and sedentary ways. After 5 weeks of waiting for my gut to adjust I thought I would give Activia a whirl. After one week I can attest that things have changed for the better and I could care less if the name of the culture is a made up word. I feel better. I am not a bowel-obsessed woman, and I am not affiliated with Dannon in any way. I am just a nurse, mom, and 40+ woman who is striving to make healthier changes. Maybe it’s just a fluke, maybe there is no cause and effect, but this is the only change in my eating habits in the last week and a half that I have made so you do the math.
Posted by Dawn on 16th February 2010
It may be a marketing name, however, it has worked wonders for me when many other treatments haven’t. When I stop eating activia, problem returns.
Posted by Enter your name here on 15th February 2010
You can get 32oz. of all natural Cascade Fresh fat free yogurt at Whole Foods for 2.39. It has 8 active cultures in it. Or better yet drink Kefir, it has different probiotics that aren’t transitory like the ones found in yogurts.
Posted by Nancy on 12th February 2010
Love it–the semantics; laughable–the marketing; public education–a blessing.
Posted by Andrea on 11th February 2010
Love it–the symantics; laughable–the marketing. Glad there’s a spot on the web to educate.
Posted by Anonymous on 11th February 2010
The yoghurt type products industry now has the preposterous marketing pitch which focusses on young girls simpering over a pot of yoghurt with the clear implication that eating this stuff will make them sexy. What a load of crap this all is and why on earth do the stupid girls fall for it all? I’ve seen them scanning the ingredients list in these products whilst holding onto their Dolce and Gabban bags. I give up – to think women fought for the vote only for this generation to act and look like Stepford Wives of the 50s.
Posted by chrissy on 9th February 2010
Bifidus Regularis was designed by marketeers to con the uneducated into thinking they were listening to bio-medical terminology. The name is utterly insulting to the rest of us and I haven’t purchased their products in years because of this. The TV ads are infuriating.
Posted by Marketing Malarky on 9th February 2010
Hilarious!!
Posted by Jamie and Emma on 7th February 2010
I’m marketing my own yogurt “Stupida” … it’s got Bifadus Redicularis. It doesn’t do a thing for digestion. But it will make you believe every moronic claim used in it’s advertising! Mmmmm … Stupida … it’s “Bifalicious”! That’s doctor talk for yummy stuff that makes you smart …. “Redicularisly Smart”! … Yea!
Posted by Steve on 7th February 2010
Having crohn’s disease, I am always looking for the truth. I knew intuitively that bifidusregularus HAD to be a manufactured word. Shame on them, shame shame. Too many folks buy this snake oil yogurt in hopes of good health,
Posted by Carolyn on 6th February 2010
as a microbiologist these commercials crack me up as do the middle classs soccer moms who discuss this at the gymn as tho they are being all medically scientifically n stuff … funny to see ad firms able to get women to obsess of bowel movements and pay a 20+% premium over regular yogurt and just plain fresh fruit in order to ‘do it’
Posted by Microbio on 6th February 2010
The commercials make me want to puke (maybe I need some bacteria, how about “antinausium nonvomitis”)
Posted by Fred on 6th February 2010
I will most definately test your B.S. Conclusion!
Posted by Thank You on 2nd February 2010
We have enjoyed all the comments shared on this blog……..
We knew B.R. was BS and use it in gest often…….
Shame on Jamie
Good Work 🙂
Posted by Jeanne and Paul Wake Forest, N.C. on 30th January 2010
thanks for the straight talk regularis
Posted by stuman on 29th January 2010
Unscrupulous Advertisers will through Phonic strategem, utilize the B.S. factor for the aid of the chronically illiterate and Scientificopathologically stupid. So if my B.S. comment seems literarily cogent, then I have just given you an infusion of “Engfish”, and that is, when people of high monitary paychecks and unscrupulous moral character, go “Fishing” for prefixual and suffixual “Bovine Excrement” to carry out their Barnumus Baileyificus stratagem, to take away your hard earned money….with their “B-$%#@”…claims of magical ingredients never found in any plastic container to date, but found in the gut of mamalian digestive systems, along with Fecal Coloforms that are there present as well, and we all know what these bacteriums can do to human digestive systems from under cooked meat.
So watch how much and what you eat, and eat your green leaf vegetables. buy the cheap yogurt with, Lactobacillus Acidophillus bacterium and not Bifidus Regularis! It is “L.A. Bacteria, that makes milk to clabber or firm up. Digestive upsets where bouts of antibiotics have depleted all useful bacteria in the gut, can be recolonized with plain yogurt. Soooo, any brand of yogurt will work, and Dannon is just overpriced B.S…er…B.R. infused Yogurt! So save your money, and peace of mind, and get anything but Dannon, that has natural lactose fixing bacterium as it’s main component! My wifey just quoted Benjamin Franklin, to sum up my linguistic diatribe, from the intelectually stymulating mind of this Historic Statesman and signer of the Declaration of Independence….A fool and their money are soon parted!
So to sum up my Bifidus Regularis diatribe, it is as it sounds…”Regularus Bifidis Monotonis Scientificus
“B.S.-icus”…I restus my casicus! Amen.
Posted by James on 29th January 2010
We I found this VERY helpful – thank you for your help
Posted by Kay Martin on 27th January 2010
That was a typo……….. yogurt I meant, not yougurt. Oops again.
Posted by Enter your name here on 26th January 2010
So all yougurt has the same bacteria and Dannon used a made up name for it. I suspected as much. Oh and if they used a better looking, unknown actress, the stuff might cost a little less. I’ll withhold my opinions of Jaimee Lee Curtis other than to say she used to be way hotter and seems to be deliberately aging herself. Oops!
Posted by Enter your name here on 26th January 2010
O.M.G. I though this was a site to get information and feedback about Bifidus Regularis not a 3rd grade lesson in languages. Kristina, Girlfriend you need to get over yourself.
Posted by Lori on 26th January 2010
I’d strongly recommend taking probiotics in a supplement rather than a yoghurt, with a company which uses real names for the probiotic genus, species and strain. I take OptiBac (www.optibacprobiotics.co.uk) and am very confident in the quality of their probiotic strains. If Activia is actually using Bifidobacterium animalis, they should surely call it that in their adverts, website etc.
Posted by George Wood on 19th January 2010
thought this site was about bacteria not linguistics.
Posted by Willow on 19th January 2010
Since eating Dannon Activia, I have noticed I have alot of congestion and coughing. Could this be relaated in any way?
Posted by Marybeth Bangert on 18th January 2010
Response to Sue- “Is it Yogurt, or Yoghurt?”
First, American is not a language, it is a nationality. One can not speak “American!” Americans speak English. To say that we speak American would be like saying that someone who was English spoke British!
Secondly, all English is a language that derives from multiple languages. Whereas languages such as French, Spanish, and Italian have Latin roots. There are variations of English that are recognized by the linguistic world. Usually noted as English(US) & English(UK).
As far as your assumption that Americans need help in pronunciation as the basis for your guess to the differences in spelling are completely incorrect. A majority of the words of US English with a different spelling, ie program/programme, are merely because linguists felt that there were redundant and unnecessary letters, thus the words were shortened!
Posted by Kristina on 17th January 2010