The term “Probiotics” is no longer just a fancy buzzword for health-enthusiasts.
It has become a popular household supplement that millions of parents are giving their children on a daily basis.
And for good reason.
Over the last decade, there has been a flood of research revealing a child’s gut-health not only affects their digestive health and immune system, but it also affects their behavior, attention-span, mood, and even their speech.
The good news is; thanks to the research, there’s a growing number of kids who take probiotics regularly.
The not-so-good news is; Just about every supplement company has thrown a few generic ingredients together and slapped a probiotic label on it to cash in on the craze.
These opportunistic companies have flooded the market with low-quality and mediocre probiotics — making it difficult for parents to decipher which probiotic is the safest and most effective for their child.
For this reason, we decided to take the top 4 most popular probiotics for kids – and rank them in order of most effective to least..
Hopefully, it helps you find a probiotic that fits your family’s needs.
Clinical studies show specific probiotic strains are linked to helping specific challenges and areas of the gut. In other words, the more strains found inside of a probitotc, the more likely it is to fix “the problem” and prevent a wider range of potential problems.
A probiotic’s potency is measured in billions of CFUs. The higher the CFU count is, the more effective it’s going to be.
Let’s face it. What good is a supplement if it’s too hard to swallow or too nasty for a kid to drink every day?
Most parents have enough on their plate; adding a daily battle to get their child to a probiotic is not ideal.
Supplements that are meant to be taken on a daily basis must be budget friendly.
Sometimes, the best evidence of how effective a probiotic is – is to hear what the customers are saying about it.
But these days, not all reviews can be trusted.
Research showed that in March 2019, there were 1.8 million new unverified reviews, with an average of 99.6% of them being 5-star reviews. Most of these reviews are from people paid to write them. These fake reviews inflate the number and overall star rating of a probiotic. So, when deciding on a product that can impact your health, don’t rely on Amazon reviews as they can be extremely misleading.
So, we made sure to ONLY include *VERIFIED customer reviews in our research.
So-called “healthy” products can become “unhealthy” if they’re created with Low-quality ingredients, fillers, toxins and additives.
Clearly, If the goal is to optimize the health of your child, you certainly wouldn’t want to give them supplements that do the opposite.
One of our favorite ways to measure the effectiveness of a probiotic is to look at the guarantee.
The more time a supplement company gives the consumer to return the product – and the easier they make it to return – shows the confidence they have in their product to deliver results their customer will be happy with.
Not only does Bio-Heal beat out all of the competitors in just about every category we measured.
But it was created with some BONUSES that many say is the “secret recipe” that has parents saying they can see the difference in their children within weeks of taking it.
They call it their special 5-in-1 formula.
Basically, All-Star Nutrition added 4 other powerful gut-health supplements into their probiotic formula. Making it 5 different gut-health supplements in one bottle.
So, Inside of every scoop, a child gets a full serving of…
The combination of their powerful formula, high-quality ingredients and raving feedback from their users, makes Bio-Heal the clear-cut champion of probiotics for kids.
Overall, Culturelle is clearly a popular Probiotic for children.
But based on our research, it seems as though their popularity has more to do with their availability in grocery stores throughout the country more than their effectiveness..
Although their CFU count and 90-day guarantee are both impressive: Their lack of strain diversity (only 1 compared to Bio-Heals 12) and the surprisingly small number of verified reviews had us scratching our heads a bit.
Regardless, they landed in our #2 spot for their high CFU count, bold guarantee and the fact it comes in a variety of powdered flavors that kids enjoy taking.
Smarty Pants is a fun brand that quickly catches parents eyes with it’s playful marketing.
However, it has some significant deficiencies in every category besides Price and How easy it is for kids to take.
But after taking a closer look: Their affordable prices and tasty flavors rank so high due to their lack of quality and overall effectiveness.
Which is often the case when companies make their probiotics in the form of a gummy.
According to The Supplement Review Digest, The most powerful and effective probiotics are the ones that undergo the least amount of “processing” and are closest to their natural form.
It goes without saying: Gummies are not exactly “natural” 🙂
They’re highly processed and include ingredients like sugar, cornstarch, and gelatin to create the right shape, taste, and chewiness.
In fact,
The process of making gummies can kill some of the probiotics before they even make it to the bottle; making them tasty, but less effective.
Lastly, the sugar contained in many varieties of gummies is known to feed the bad bacteria in the gut – which only adds fuel to the digestive issues people are trying to avoid (or remedy).
It’s kind of like being on a diet and dumping a cup of sugar in a protein shake.
Similar to Smarty Pants, Align is a fun-loving brand with great tasting (yet not very effective) gummies.
However, unlike Smarty Pants, they were the most expensive of all the options.
When we considered their low scores on strain diversity (1), CFU’s (1 Billion vs. Culturelle’s 10 Billion or Bio-Heal’s 13 Billion) and their lack of quality ingredients…
…Combined With the fact they charge the most for their product – It was an easy decision to place this supplement last on the list.
At any rate:
Hopefully you found this information helpful in pointing you in the right direction of choosing a probiotic that fits the needs of you and your children.
More importantly, regardless of the probiotic you choose, the key is to start giving your child probiotics on a daily basis.
It’s the easiest way to help build their immunity and support their digestion, mood, attentiveness and behavior.
And based on the research, it looks like Bio-Heal might be the best option to try.
All the best,
LINKS: https://supplementreviewdigest.com/probiotics-supplement-review/index_m.html