Review of Primal Defense from the Perspective of a Crohn's Patient

Primal Defense is a probiotic by Garden of Life. It debuted in late 1998 as Prime Defense at first and was promoted by Jordan Rubin, who wrote a book called Patient Heal Thyself, and later, another book called The Maker's Diet. He was a Crohn's patient whose condition became so severe that he nearly died. He traveled the world over and tried many alternative treatments which did not help him, until he discovered what he called, "black gold". It contained soil organisms as probiotics, which was very uncommon to use at that time. He claims this probiotic formula, plus a modified SCD diet that included raw milk and coconut oil, helped him regain his health and start the Garden of Life company.

I discovered Primal Defense after reading a book in a health food store called Beyond Probiotics in early 1999. I had tried many probiotics in the past, after feeling that I had dysbiosis from taking multiple rounds of antibiotics. I had chronic diarrhea and felt sick most of the time. I was later diagnosed with Crohn's disease. I was sure I had too much bad bacteria, so I thought that taking good bacteria might help balance things. But none of the probiotics I took helped me. However, after taking an entire year to work slowly up on Primal Defense because of die-off, my diarrhea was gone, and I felt really quite well.

Primal Defense has worked really very well for me. The only thing I have noticed, is that during times when I would temporarily stop taking it for some reason, my disease would come back with tremendous force that wasn't there before I started taking it. My theory is that Primal Defense is so strong that it can also displace good native flora in your gut. Then if you stop taking it, the bad flora which are more hardy and virulent come back and take over gut real estate.

The probiotics in Primal Defense are not resident bacteria, but transient. I am currently exploring the Natren probiotics, which they claim are actual human origin strains that will implant in your gut.

After so very many years of taking Primal Defense, I discovered that I am allergic to one of the probiotics in it called Lactobacillus casai. This bacteria also happens to create histamine in the gut, which can lead to the many symptoms of Histamine Intolerance. Because of this, I am not doing quite as well on Primal Defense, but it is still necessary for me to take it to avoid becoming very ill. So I am currently looking into histamine reducing probiotics to help balance out the histamine problem.

I felt that Primal Defense was absolutely revolutionary when it first came out. Its popularity caused Garden of Life to rise to become a huge company. It was a probiotic that actually worked, and it changed many people's lives. What I have noticed, is that now, many companies have come out with very similar formulations in their probiotic products. Even the prescription VSL#3 has a similar line-up of probiotics to Primal Defense.

The important thing to remember when taking Primal Defense is that, if you are a Crohn's patient, you may react to it with the die-off of bad bacteria, and feel even sicker for awhile. This is actually a sign that the product is working, and you can back down on the dosage for awhile until you are able to tolerate higher amounts.

Primal Defense also contains "Ionic Plant Based Minerals". My understanding of what this is is that this is an ingredient that is similar to Restore:

http://restore4life.com/

which is the remains of ancient bacteria that grew on peat moss. The product contains the "signals" of bacteria that work in your gut to close the tight junctions that cause leaky gut when they are open.

This "Ionic Plant Based Minerals" ingredient likely makes Primal Defense even more powerful for healing a damaged gut.

Overall, I do recommend Primal Defense, but I also recommend that it is not your only probiotic, and that you incorporate other bacteria that are resident into your diet.