Probiotics- the buzzword of 2008

Not long ago, I ran across the sobering statistic that 90% of the cells that make up human beings are not human at all, but bacteria, phages, mites and other creatures that we depend on for essential services such as digestion.

Not surprisingly, then, is the newest buzzword in the food and suppliment marketing world, one you'll see over and over in the near future: probiotics. If the familiar antibiotics are substances that fight the biotics of malevolent bacteria, probiotics support or even supply the good bacteria.

For many years yogurt has proudly announced it contained live cultures, a perfect example of probiotics. The food probably wouldn't sell nearly as well if it was marketed as "packed with bacteria". However, medicine continues to discover new reasons we need to nurture our bowel buddies, and as their roles become more widely known, look for more and more products to use the probiotic claim.

An early entry into this market is Proctor and Gamble's Align, a new dietary suppliment that targets the probioticly interested. How long before we see the first beer or soda using the probiotic pitch? 200? Bud Bac? Pepsi Probio?