## 3 Results and Discussion
### Effect of Gastrointestinal Fluids on the Viability of Lactobacillus Cells  
As shown in Table 5, the survival rate of lactobacilli cells after gastric juice treatment for each kind of tablets was remarkably different with the different initial amounts of tablet solution inoculated into gastric juice. It was increased 23-, 350-, 186- or 482-fold for tablets of control, L-group, M-group, or H-group, respectively, when the initial inoculum increased from 0.1 mL to 1.0 mL. With a 10-fold increment in the initial inoculum, the survival rate of lactobacilli cells after gastric juice treatment increased more than 10-fold for all the kinds of tablets, which demonstrated that more intake of the probiotic product would greatly increase the levels of probiotics reaching the intestine. Meanwhile, it can be seen that the effervescent tablets supplemented with the herbs have a higher survival rate of lactobacilli cells after gastric fluid treatment than the control at 1.0 mL initial inoculum, but this phenomenon cannot be found at 0.1 mL initial inoculum (Table 5). This result indicates that the herbs supplemented in tablets have a protective effect on the viability of lactobacilli during gastric fluid treatment, and this protective effect of the herbs is dose-dependent. This protective effect caused by the herbs should also be a comprehensive effect of antimicrobial activity and probiotic activity derived from components in the herbs. However, in the gastric juice environment, antimicrobial components in the herbs may not play their role effectively, and/or probiotic activity of components may be improved, thus the protective effect is prominent. After enteric juice treatment, there were no viable lactobacilli cells at 0.1 mL initial inoculum for three kinds of tablets, while viable cells could be examined in all the kinds of tablets at 1.0 mL initial inoculum (Table 5). This result also confirmed that more intake of the product would significantly \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c} \hline
**Tablets** & **The Survival Rate after Tablet Disintegration for 48 h** \\ \hline Control & 216.61\% \(\pm\) 0.86 b  \\ L-group & 76.25\% \(\pm\) 0.13 a  \\ M-group & 89.50\% \(\pm\) 0.21 a  \\ H-group & 77.62\% \(\pm\) 0.16 a  \\ \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: The survival rate of lactobacilli cells after tablet disintegration for 48 h. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{3}{*}{**Tablets**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**The Initial Amount of Tablet**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Survival Rate (\%)**} \\ \cline{2-5}  & **Solution Inoculated into** & **Gastric juice** & **Enter juice** & **Enter juice** \\  & **Gastric juice** & **Treatment (N\({}_{\text{g}}\)/N\({}_{\text{g}}\)) \#** & **Treatment (N\({}_{\text{g}}\)/N\({}_{\text{g}}\)) \#** & **Treatment (N\({}_{\text{g}}\)/N\({}_{\text{g}}\)) \#** \\ \hline Control & 0.1 mL & 0.0369 & 0.0000 & 0.0000 \\ L-group & 0.1 mL & 0.0063 & 0.3992 & 0.0000 \\ M-group & 0.1 mL & 0.0077 & 0.0000 & 0.0000 \\ H-group & 0.1 mL & 0.0155 & 0.0000 & 0.0000 \\ \hline Control & 1.0 mL & 0.8660 & 0.1167 & 0.0009 \\ L-group & 1.0 mL & 2.2162 & 0.3444 & 0.0076 \\ M-group & 1.0 mL & 1.4232 & 0.0442 & 0.0006 \\ H-group & 1.0 mL & 7.4842 & 0.3239 & 0.0294 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 5: The survival rate of lactobacilli cells after contact with gastric juice for 30 min followed by exposure to enteric juice for 150 min for different kinds of lactobacilli effectiveness tablets. increase the levels of probiotics in the intestine. However, compared with the control, the survival rate of lactobacilli cells after intestinal juice treatment only increased 2.95-, 0.13- and 2.77-fold for L-group, M-group, and H-group, respectively. Meanwhile, there was no dose-dependent protective effect of the herbs on the viability of lactobacilli cells after enteric juice treatment when compared to the gastric fluid treatment. [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON] and [PERSON] [12] had also found that the number of _L.