# S. Boulardii - Florastor versus Jarrow's version?



## sunspot19

Just curious, I noticed it is pretty difficult to obtain Florastor locally. Or at least for me to get it, I'd probably have to have a pharmacy special order it.On the other hand, my local health food store has the Jarrow version.Curious - anyone noticed a difference at all between these two brands? If you do internet searches, there are claims by the makers of Florastor that the Jarrow version is not as "potent" and that it contains lots of impurities, but that seems a bit of the normal misadvertising a competitor may be doing.Also, another thing that confuses me - on the Jarrow bottle it claims each tablet contains 5B yeast cells, but if you read around, I think they claim the same pills only have 1B yeast cells. Any clarification would be great here!I am particularly enthused by the fact that Jarrow claims to be non-dairy, while I understood Florastor to include some lactose. Given I may be lactose intolerant, would think that may be a plus in Jarrow's direction.


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## Concerned lady

Dear Sunspot19,I am wondering the same thing you are, about how Jarrow and Biocodex (Florastor) compare with eachother. I'd like to respond to your good points, below, on your message. I'll put my responses in _italics_.Concerned [email protected]Just curious, I noticed it is pretty difficult to obtain Florastor locally. Or at least for me to get it, I'd probably have to have a pharmacy special order it._I started with Jarrow's Saccharomyces boulardii when I first suspected I had Clostridium difficile, after a 5 day course of Keflex (broad spectrum antibiotic), a few weeks ago. Then, I switched to Florastor, but am wondering how different the 2 brands are, because Florasotr is so expensive. I get the Florastor by having a pharmacy in a supermarket (City Market) order it for me. They always get it in, the very day after I ask them to order it._-------------------------------On the other hand, my local health food store has the Jarrow version._Same here. I can buy it at some Vitamin Cottage health food stores (in their refrigerated probiotics sections), but it's not in every store._--------------------------------Curious - anyone noticed a difference at all between these two brands? If you do internet searches, there are claims by the makers of Florastor that the Jarrow version is not as "potent" and that it contains lots of impurities, but that seems a bit of the normal misadvertising a competitor may be doing._I can't get a straight answer yet, from either comapny's reps. I'm almost ready to try to find a local laboratory, and see how much it would cost, for them to measure the numbers of c.f.u.'s (colony forming units) in one capsule of each brand.With the Florastor (Biocodex's name for their S. boulardii), it says "lyo", which means lyophilized, and this means freeze dried. I have found out from a researcher who used to work for Biocodex, and from a pharmacist who also worked (or works?) for Biocodex, that Florastor MUST NOT BE REFRIGERATED. This is because if it were refrigerated, moisture (water) would get into the bottle, then get into the capsules, and start the "friendly" yeast to "budding". Then, because the yeast have no source of food, they would die in the bottle, before getting into my intestines!Previously, Jarrow's S. boulardii bottles said they NEED TO BE REFRIGERATED. And, it doesn't say freeze dried on Jarrow's bottles. I asked a Jarrow rep. about this, and he's checking on it, to see if it is freeze dried or not. (I think it's not freeze dried, or it would say so on the label).Now, the Jarrow rep. said that future labels will say it DOESN'T NEED TO BE REFRIGERATED.I asked him to tell me what temperature their S. boulardii is in, during shipping from Europe. Previously, there was a Canadian company that made the S. boulardii for Jarrow, but they were too expensive, so Jarrow switched (according to the Rep) to a company in Europe. I know that Florastor is made by a French pharmaceutical company, Biocodex, but the Jarrow rep. said Jarrow is made by a different company, and he wouldn't tell me what company! Does anyone know?I asked him whether Jarrow's yeast would start budding in the bottle, if moisture got in (like from refrigeration), and he didn't seem to know._---------------------------Also, another thing that confuses me - on the Jarrow bottle it claims each tablet contains 5B yeast cells, but if you read around, I think they claim the same pills only have 1B yeast cells._Yes, labels on both Biocodex's "Florastor", and Jarrow's brand of S. boulardii, both say that each capsule contains 5 billion yeast cells (this is also 250 mg. per capsule). As I said above, I'm close to checking on costs of having a comparative count done, of one capsule of each brand, by a good lab. _------------------------------Any clarification would be great here!_When I asked a nurse who works for Biocodex why their S. boulardii (Florastor) was so expensive, she got a bit snippy with me, as if I should just be happy to be able to buy it. When I asked a Jarrow rep. why Biocodex was so much more expensive than Jarrow, he was "guessing" that it was to pay for all the clinical studies sponsored by Biocodex. I asked him why Jarrow doesn't do any clinical trials on their S. boulardii, and implied that it was too expensive for Jarrow to do that, because Jarrow sells a lot of products, and Biocodex only sells 8 products in Europe. He's a nice guy, but has only worked a couple of years for Jarrow, so I don't know how much he knows, and how much he was assuming/guessing. I asked the Jarrow rep. for evidence by a third party, that each S. boulardii capsule does indeed have 5 billion organisms of this yeast. He said he would send it to me (email). I haven't gotten it yet. At least, he did agree that my questions were valid, and I deserved to get them answered correctly. He's working on it.If you or anyone else has answers, I'm all ears!_Concerned [email protected] I am particularly enthused by the fact that Jarrow claims to be non-dairy, while I understood Florastor to include some lactose. Given I may be lactose intolerant, would think that may be a plus in Jarrow's direction._I think that the lactose is only 30 mg. per capusle, and is there to nourish the yeast cells. But, if Jarrow is actually equivalent to Florastor, in viable numbers per capsule, I'd love to save some money, by using the Jarrow brand.Once I use up my Florastor, I'm thinking I may just experiment, and try the Jarrow brand again, and see what happens.For my C. difficile intestinal infection (antibiotic caused), I'm not using any antibiotics, such as Flagyl or Vancomycin -- no more antibiotics for me, ever, except as a last resort, and only if desperately needed. It's a little dismaying, that we can't get actual facts, easily, to compare these brands!A neighbor of mine saw a gastroenterologist a few years ago, and it was this gastro who actually recommended Saccharomyces boulardii and Acidophilus, for her C. difficile infection! I made an appointment with her previous gastroenterologist--first time ever for me to see this type of specialist, and I'll see what he thinks. _Any new ideas about this, from you and from others?Concerned [email protected]


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## Trino

Thanks to you both. Great information. I have some of both and have been refrigerating them, but have been using the Florastor and so it doesn't sit around. See if you like the price at the Organic Pharmacy site, which is where I have bought it. I discovered another trick to the Jarrow type and that is to take it twice a day rather than once which is what you would do with Florastor, and it seems to do better. I haven't noticed any problems from taking for instance a Jarrow in the day and a Florastor at night. They don't on the other hand seem to mix with other probiotics except acidophilus. Trino


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## sunspot19

Hi, it has been a while so sorry for not responding sooner.My experience with Florastor has been mixed. I don't think I have realistically found much of an improvement by Florastor alone although I have assiduously taken the capsules for quite a while now. As always, NO silver bullet.However, after coming back from an overseas trip with my family and running into trouble again with constant diarrhea (went to Germany so not necessarily that I picked up another stomach bug), I decided to try to start on a cocktail of various antibiotics. Perhaps over the top but as far as I can tell it hasn't hurt me any and perhaps been helpful.As it is, I take colestid (2 pills every morning), which certainly has helped and stopped generally post-prandial diarrhea, but on top of that the very first thing I do is take a VSL#3 packet, together with Metagenics Ultra Flora DF (capsule), align (capsule), and a capsule of super 8 from Udo's Choice. Finally I round it out with a capsule of Florastor.I am going to write a separate thread on this since I find it relatively interesting in the results...Best.


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