I think the pills are a bit cheaper.

But I would normally get it from food sources if it's easily available.
I see no point in taking pills/tablets because there are other nutriets in yogurt making it worth consuming. I know there's only a few grams of protein and a lot of sugar, but I'm not drinking a gallon of it daily. So the heck with it. =P

Should you prefer yogurt, go for natural flavour yogurt (no sugar, no fruity stuff) or Yakult.

Yakult publishes the number of CFU of its probiotic strain on the packaging. 30 billion in a bottle. That's a lot of bac for your buck. Guaranteed to reach your colon.
It's one of the highest, even compared to Yakult from other countries which are normally 10 billion in a larger bottle (e.g. S'pore, China).
Oh, I just found out that there's a new low sugar version of Yakult. I should go try it. =)

And if you could get a group of 20 persons, you could contact Yakult for a factory visit. They always welcome people to visit them.
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All yogurt have probiotics. And probiotics pills are supplements, not drugs or medicine. GP takde.
Pharmacy will carry the tablets, and kedai-kedai runcit pun ada yogurt.

This post has been edited by iamyuanwu: Mar 29 2009, 02:10 PM

Prevent diarrhoea/cirit-birit,
better bowel movement,
increased nutrient absorption (e.g calcium),
prevent harmful bacteria from colonising your colon,
improve general health
odourless fart
produce vitamin K

certain companies (e.g. Yakult and other prebiotic [this is the food for probiotic bac] producers) claim that:
reduce various allergic reactions
improve general health

and for me,
- It reduces my stomach discomfort when I consume milk/dairy products.
- It prevents cirit-birit. E.g. I went BBQ with a bunch of friends on the beach once. Everyone got a bad case of cirit-birit except me. I had a bit of stomach discomfort, but that's all. I'd been taking yogurt every morning for the past 3 months.

You need to remember to eat vegetables and fruits daily to 'feed' the good bacteria.
No use taking probiotic pills if you don't feed them.

=)
Allow me to explain again.

The BBQ-by-the-beach incident happened before I got into exercising and lifting weights and proper eating habits (I was still a university student then). The only difference I made at that time was eating yogurt every morning because it was quick and easy. I swear to you, the yogurt did work.

How it works is that if you eat fruits and vege and yogurt, the probiotics are plentiful in your colon. And they colonise the walls of your intestine, forming a barrier/layer, which also helps digest/ferment certain food and help transport them to your intenstines.
Harmful bacterium need to adhere to your colon walls in order to replicate & grow. So the probiotics and harmful bacterium compete to colonise the colon. The more probiotics you have, the harder it is for harmful bacteria to colonise your colon. It would also speed up your recovery.

Digressing: everyone should take yogurt/probiotics after taking antibiotics. Antibiotics destroy many bacteria strains regardless of probiotics or not. You need to replenish it.
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Yogurt does not contain lactose. It is exactly the food that lactose intolerant people can eat. The lactose have been fermented by the bacterium into lactic acid.
That's why I mentioned that it reduces my stomach discomfort when I drink milk. I'm not really lactose intolerant, but I do have some discomfort and becomes bloated (with nasty fart) when I drink milk. Yogurt reduces these issues for me.
Note: different people different poison. You need to try it out yourself to find out.

But take note of this:
Cultured drink (Yakult, Vitagen) = yogurt + water. No lactose.
Yogurt drink (Nestle, Dutchlady, creamy and thicker) = yogurt + milk. Contains lactose.

This post has been edited by iamyuanwu: Mar 29 2009, 03:22 PM

My mistake again. Yogurt does contain a little lactose, but minimal amount. And since it also contains lactic acid bacterium, they help to continue ferment it after being consumed.

Anyway, different people have different levels of lactose intolerance. But most intolerant people will have no problem taking yogurt except for the most sensitive.

By the way, mass produced doesn't mean it's refined. It only means it's produced in huge quantity. You need to look at the processing steps to determine if it's refined or not.