Miyarisan is well worth the long shipment time from Japan. Research confirms its many benefits.
I have some specific health needs involving long-term use of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance. I've done some rather extensive research to understand which product would most effectively help rebuild my gut microbiome: Miyarisan or the Canadian product, Advanced Orthomolecular Research (AOR), Amazon's Choice. If you have real health concerns, the detail provided here may be helpful. Otherwise, you might want to skip or skim this review.<br />There are instructions in English on the Miyarisan box, but not much else. It indicates Clostridium Butyricum as the probiotic, but it does not give a count of Colony Forming Units (CFU) per dose. This missing information makes a straight comparison between the two products difficult. However, based on dosage guidelines, nine of these small pills are taken each day, so this bottle of 330 tablets will last about 36 days. The Advanced Orthomolecular Research product is a 30 day supply. Doing the math, it ends up about 9 cents more per day for Miyarisan or $2.70 more for a month's supply. Not much.<br />Miyarsan contains, in addition to lactose hydrate (which is in both formulations), cornstarch, talc, MICROCRYSTALLINE CELLULOSE (a refined wood pulp, which some holistic practitioners warn causes inflammation), MAGNESIUM STEARATE (a synthetic fat, which many holistic practitioners are up in arms about), and sucrose. Cornstarch, talc, and sucrose, all common pharmaceutical fillers, each has their critics among holistic practitioners in North America. In contrast, the AOR probiotic has, in addition to lactose and potato starch, two synthetic polymers: polyvinyl alcohol and providone. Both are used in eye care products and thought to be safe, but who knows? These synthetics appear to have been on the market since 1996. When they've been around as long as talc and sucrose, there may well be concerns raised about the safety of them. The AOR capsule is vegetarian hypromellose, essentially a dissolvable synthetic.<br /><br />The real concern about the Advanced Orthomolecular Research product is that its primary probiotic is Enterococcus Faecium which is provided as a whopping 54 million CFU's per dose compared to 1.8 million for Clostridium Butyricum. While non-toxic strains of the latter are safe and very valuable probiotics which contribute to the formation of butyrate in the large intestine, there are some concerns that Enterococcus Faecium could contribute to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). A 2001 study on Clinical Infectious Diseases presents evidence for this; it can be found on the internet @  Oxford Academic, under the title, Probiotic Enterococcus faecium Strain Is a Possible Recipient of the vanA Gene Cluster,<br />Moreover, a recent (2018) scientific article reiterates that concern, It states, &#34;Concerns over the safety of E. faecium for use as a probiotic food supplement have been raised due to the propensity of this microbe to develop and acquire AMR, especially to vancomycin and ampicillin.&#34; This article is on the site, Pen & Tec and is entitled, &#34;Enterococcus faecium as probiotic – is it safe? Views from Taiwan, USA and EU&#34;<br />Given my history and the rise of antimicrobial resistance worldwide, this last is more than enough to lead me to choose Miyarisan over AOR. I found another study specific to Miyarisan, which confirms this decision. It’s on the site, Science Direct, under Clinical Microbiology and Infection. It is entitled, Clostridium Butyricum: from beneficial to a new emerging pathogen<br />In part, it reads, &#34;A recent study found that the C. butyricum strain MIYAIRI 588 (CBM588) promoted regulatory T-cell generation in the intestine through induction of transforming growth factor-β1 from lamina propria dendritic cells… with a suggested role of fermentation metabolites such as butyrate. This C. butyricum strain also induced interleukin-10-producing macrophages in inflamed mucosa to prevent acute experimental colitis in mice… Other experimental studies have shown the capacity of this strain to improve non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and prevent C. difficile infection, enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 infection, and gastric ulcers. In clinical practice, the administration of CBM588 was effective for both the treatment and the prophylaxis of antibiotic-associated diarrhea in children. It increased the level of anaerobes and prevented the decrease in the level of Bifidobacterium species in subjects who received antibiotics.&#34;
Rating: 5 stars