Dannon Settles Activia Lawsuit

Oh, the irony! I was just thinking about the lawsuit against Dannon yogurt's Activia brand when, I walked into a lecture this morning and one of the first questions was just about this subject. The woman said that she had just seen a commercial about Activia and wondered if it was true -- that this Dannon product could improve her digestive system and improve her imunity.

Probiotics are good bacteria that help maintain a healthy intestinal system. A healthy digestive tract has over 400 different kinds of probiotic bacteria that reduce the growth of harmful bacteria. According to research in the American Journal of Clinicial Nutrition, certain probiotics may restore normal bowel function and may help reduce:

• Diarrhea that is a side effect of antibiotics.
• Certain types of infectious diarrhea.
• Inflammation of the ileal pouch (pouchitis) that may occur in people who have had surgery to remove the colon.

These results suggest that eventually probiotics may also be used to:

• Help with other causes of diarrhea.
• Help prevent infections in the digestive tract.
• Help control immune response (inflammation), as in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
  Researchers are studying the use of probiotics for inflammatory bowel disease, colon cancer, and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Remember, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not regulate dietary supplements in the same way it regulates medication. A dietary supplement can be sold with limited or no research on how well it works or on its safety. In fact, I have often felt that many companies go a bit too far in their claims that such-and-such product will "boost" or improve immunity. The immune system is such a complex system that such claims are nearly impossible to evaluate much less prove. While there are benefits to probiotics, the lawsuit outlined below states that Dannon just made claims that were a bit too far reaching without adequate science to back them.

As part of the $35 million settlement, the company agreed to make changes to the labeling and advertising of Activia and DanActive by increasing the visibility of the scientific names of the "probiotic" cultures in the yogurts, court documents said. Dannon also agreed to remove the word "immunity" from its DanActive products. The current labels that say the yogurt has "a positive effect on your digestive tract's immune system" will be reworded to say the yogurt will "interact with your digestive tract's immune system."

Dannon Settles Activia Lawsuit
And just as another side note... as I was looking into this topic, I came across a website which I thought might provide some interesting and UNBIASED information on probiotics... The site is: www.usprobiotics.org. But, then I checked to see who they were and found that they are sponsored by the California Dairy Research Foundation AND Dairy and Food Culture Technologies! So... I kept looking...

More reliable places to look for good info on probiotics...

New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/health/29well.html

Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology:
July 2008 - Volume 42 - Issue - pp S104-S108:
http://journals.lww.com/jcge/Abstract/2008/07001/Recommendations_for_Probiotic_Use_2008.12.aspx

WebMD

http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/tc/probiotics-topic-overview

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