GoodBelly Study: Probiotics May Even Benefit Heart Health

A rat study has unearthed new potential for probiotic supplements and heart health, after rats were fed the commercial probiotic beverage GoodBelly.

In the independent study, researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin (Milwaukee) fed GoodBelly to rats and assessed their circulating levels of leptin, considered a potential factor in heart disease. When rats consumed GoodBelly, their leptin levels decreased by an average 38%. The probiotic strain in GoodBelly, Lactobacillus plantarum, has demonstrated this leptin-lowering effect in previous trials on humans and rats.

Beyond a link to decreased leptin, GoodBelly consumption was also associated with reduction in heart attack severity. The researchers found such a reduction to be similar to that experienced by rats when injected with the antibiotic vancomycin. The researchers claim that adding leptin back to the diet, in either case of treatment, abolished any cardioprotective effect.

GoodBelly CEO Alan Murray welcomed the results of the study, published in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB).

“We were pleasantly surprised to discover that GoodBelly was used in [the study] since we had no involvement or prior knowledge of his research…GoodBelly was developed to support digestive health, and while there is not sufficient evidence to support any heart health claim at this time, it is certainly encouraging to see findings of this nature.”