Answers
Questions people actually type, answered from the same graded fact base as the rest of this site. Every answer here is written to be read on its own, to say where it stops, and to end in the record you would check it against. Several of them are “no”, and one is “mostly no, and the evidence runs the other way”.
The questions
Each row links to one page. The short line under a question is the verdict, not the answer — the answer is on the page, with the trial behind it.
- Do probiotics make you poop?
- Mostly no — and the evidence that exists runs the other way. Regularity is Grade D. HN019 has zero IBS trials and both its larger constipation trials failed. Which labels in this audit print it, and what they cost a day. 5,500 US searches a month, KD 3 — the one term in this hub with a verified volume.
- Is a men's probiotic different from a women's probiotic?
- Most often by a botanical or a mineral — never by a bacterium chosen on male evidence. Across fourteen same-brand comparisons, zero men's or default formulas contain a probiotic strain, by designator, selected on male-specific evidence.
- How many CFU do I need?
- The one that was tested — which is usually smaller than the label boasts. The best dose is the one tested in humans for the outcome you want. In one dose-ranging trial of over 300 subjects, only the middle dose beat placebo.
- Do more strains mean a better probiotic?
- No — most of the extra names on the panel resolve to nothing. No. Across the founding cohort, 43 of 294 organism slots carry a strain with any human randomised trial under the designator printed on the label.
- Should I refrigerate probiotics?
- Follow the label — and check that the brand's own website agrees with it. Read the label, and expect it to disagree with the website — in one product in this audit it does, on both storage and potency basis.
Questions whose page was folded into the evidence
These were answering the same question as an evidence page, in the same sentences. One page each now, and the old addresses redirect to it.
- Do probiotics increase testosterone?
- No — and the failed trial was run by the strain's own manufacturer. This question had a page of its own, and every block on it was pulled from the same source the testosterone evidence page renders in full — the same trial chain, in the same sentences. There is one page now. The question keeps its section, its answer is unchanged, and the old address redirects to it. Answered on the testosterone evidence page, in the same words.
- Are probiotics good for the prostate?
- No demonstrated benefit, and the marketing rests on one dish of cells. This question had a page of its own and that page restated the prostate evidence page rather than citing it — the same absence statement, the same cell-culture finding, in the same sentences. There is one page now. The question keeps its section, its answer is unchanged, and the old address redirects to it. Answered on the prostate and BPH evidence page, in the same words.
- Are probiotics safe?
- For a healthy adult, probably — with a named list of people it is not for. This question had a page of its own, and the list of people who should not take these was rendered on both it and the safety evidence page — one contraindication list under two different anchors, on two addresses. That is the last thing that should exist in two places. There is one page now, one list and one anchor. The question keeps its section, its answer is unchanged, and the old address redirects to it. Answered on the safety evidence page, in the same words.
Questions from the same block that do not get a page
How an answer on this site is written
- The answer comes first, in one paragraph. Not a definition, not a history of the microbiome, not four hundred words before the verdict.
- Then the trial that produced it, with the sample size, the endpoint it was registered against, the result the abstract does not lead with, and who paid for it.
- Then where the answer stops. Every “no trial exists” claim on this site carries the list of databases actually searched, because absence is the most perishable kind of claim on any page here.
- And the record behind it. Every answer names the trials, registry records and regulator documents it rests on, by identifier.