Probiotics 'have effects on gut'

So what? Bullets to the head "have effects on the brain."

"Scientists say they have hard evidence foods containing "friendly bacteria" do have a tangible effect on the body."

And who funded this "so what" study?

"The Imperial College London research - which was part-funded by food giant Nestle - also suggested they could change fat digestion."

Do you smell an ad campaign coming?

Well, it probably won't mention this:

"But dieticians say they work only for relatively small numbers of people...

The science of probiotics has been controversial, with suggestions that even the billions of bacteria in a pot of yoghurt could not possibly influence the trillions already found in our guts.

However, the mouse research does offer some evidence of an measurable effect, say the researchers...

We're still trying to understand what the changes they bring about might mean, in terms of overall health, but we have established that introducing 'friendly' bacteria can change the dynamics of the whole population of microbes in the gut."

A spokesman for the British Dietetic Association said that most theories about the way probiotics worked involved the new 'friendly bacteria' getting rid of harmful bacteria by competing more strongly for their food.

'It's believed that they can displace them by being dominant, rather than interact with them directly, so this would be something new.'

She added that relatively few people had actually been shown to benefit from probiotics, including people with irritable bowel syndrome, those at risk from travellers' diarrhoea, and patients whose own gut bacteria had been wiped out by antibiotics."

Probiotics?

Horsefeathers.