The supplement aisle has gotten crowded. Probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics — and now postbiotics. For clinicians and informed owners alike, the spread of “-biotic” terminology creates real confusion about what each category actually delivers, how it works, and whether the evidence backs its use. This guide cuts through the marketing noise with peer-reviewed definitions, a clear…
The question “probiotic or postbiotic?” comes up constantly in practice now. Owners arrive with something they bought online and want to know whether the live-culture powder beats the heat-killed version — or whether they should be giving both. The honest answer is complex, because these are mechanistically different interventions with different evidence, different strengths, and…
The probiotic industry measures potency in colony-forming units — a metric that is unstable by its very nature. CFU counts start falling the moment a product is manufactured, eroded by temperature, moisture, oxygen, and time. The number on the label is a snapshot of a dying population. Postbiotics are measured differently: in milligrams of inactivated…
Bad breath in a dog isn’t just a cosmetic problem. More often than not it’s a clinical sign — usually of periodontal disease, which affects over 80% of dogs by the age of three (Stella et al., 2018; PMID: 30234113). The supplement industry has answered with a flood of “oral health” products: dental chews, water…
Every few weeks I’ve the same conversation. Someone brings their dog in, pulls a bottle out of a bag, and asks whether the 70 billion CFU on the label is enough — or whether they should be worried it’s too little. The number has become the whole argument. Five billion, thirty billion, seventy billion, two…