I think I have a real treat for you. I asked Karl Seddon, creator of Elixa Probiotic, to write a post offering his perspective on probiotics and prebiotics, or FODMAPs. Little did I know he was clever enough to write such an engaging travelogue about Uganda, making it such an engaging read. I previously blogged about my experience with Elixa here.

Based on the emails I receive, I’d say that the average person interested in probiotics and gut health are well-read on the topic. Due to the relatively recent emergence of majority access to the internet and mainstream awareness of the microbiome, there’s a huge amount of crowd-sourced research and shared information regarding probiotics, the microbiome, and prebiotics—or what I prefer to call FODMAPs.

Self-experimentation, anecdotal meta-analysis (collating 2nd hand reports), and scientific experiments are all legitimate means to increase our understanding of how the gut bacteria affect us and how to manipulate this understanding to our advantage.

Although I am the developer and manufacturer of Elixa Probiotic, this article does not directly concern probiotic supplementation. There is plenty to discuss about the individual attributes of Elixa, however I would prefer to start chronologically by detailing some of the R&D that came before. Hopefully this will be a brief insight into some of the thoughts and work performed during the 3+ years of development that has occurred since I graduated.

With a science-based, academic background, most people will assume: Oh, so you learned this stuff at university, right?