Now that we know probiotics are useless, it’s time we stopped hoarding supplements

Food bores who obsess about their gut over their cooking skills are banned from my house

A new study has shown that probiotics are not as useful as previously thought (Shutterstock)

It’s well known (and medically proven) that a course of antibiotics can wreck the balance in your gut – but can probiotics help to restore a healthy environment afterwards? Maybe not.

These little bottles of costly yoghurt-based drinks have been found to have limited value, according to a new Israeli study.

One of the most boring first world conversations has to be about the state of your gastrointestinal tracts – its right up there with “clean eating” in my book. Food bores who obsess about their gut over their cooking skills are banned from my house.

Recently, I took a short course of antibiotics, and a friend recommended a very high dose of probiotic tablets (they get the most stars on Amazon and cost a fortune), which I dutifully popped for couple of weeks. I started to feel like my stomach was churning constantly – god knows what was happening down there. When I told my doctor he laughed and recommended I chuck them away, and said that they might even be harmful at worse, useless at best.

If you eat and drink normally, it’s easy to sort your body out without resorting to useless supplements – my cupboard is full of them, from fish oil to turmeric to selenium. I’ve bought way more useless supplements than unworn shoes.