> It complicates the system to have to maintain a balanced internal ecology; look at the probiotic yogurts out there to see how often it gets out of whack in the real world.
Probiotic yogurts are mostly marketing as far as any research I've seen in metagenomics. I'm unaware of any scientific evidence that eating Activa gives you anything more than expensive poop. However, legitimate medical probiotic treatments tend to be the result of mucking with gut flora, for example, in other ways, such as taking antibiotics (I'm thinking of stool transplants for C. diff which is a fairly simple, disgusting, and effective treatment). But my point is really, how much does it complicate the system because I don't think anyone is aware of a working alternative so this could be the simplest solution to get all of the functionality we need.
Probiotic yogurts are mostly marketing as far as any research I've seen in metagenomics. I'm unaware of any scientific evidence that eating Activa gives you anything more than expensive poop. However, legitimate medical probiotic treatments tend to be the result of mucking with gut flora, for example, in other ways, such as taking antibiotics (I'm thinking of stool transplants for C. diff which is a fairly simple, disgusting, and effective treatment). But my point is really, how much does it complicate the system because I don't think anyone is aware of a working alternative so this could be the simplest solution to get all of the functionality we need.