Yakult



Yakult (ヤクルト) is a Japanese probiotic yogurt-like product made by fermenting a mixture of skimmed milk with a special strain of the bacteria Lactobacillus casei Shirota. Yakult Honsha Co., Ltd. (株式会社ヤクルト本社) (tyo: 2267) It was created by Minoru Shirota who graduated from the Medical School of Kyoto University in 1930. In 1935, he started manufacturing and selling Yakult. Official claims state that the name is derived from jahurto, an older form of jogurto, the Esperanto word for "yogurt". Since then, Yakult has also introduced a line of beverages for the Japanese market that contain Bifidobacterium breve bacteria, and has also used its lactobacilli research to develop cosmetics. More recently, the Yakult Honsha played a major role in developing the chemotherapy drug irinotecan (Camptosar, CPT-11).

Yakult also owns one of Japan's major baseball franchises, the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.

Yakult is popular for its reported health benefits, however these claims are not supported by scientific research. Stomach acid has a reference value of 1.5-3.5pH[4], and an investigation into the properties of 189 strains of lactic acid bateria found that "all sample strains were not viable at pH3.0". From this, we can conclude that the L. Casei Shirota contained in Yakult, whilst being more acid resistant, would not be viable once entering a humans stomach and encountering such low pH values.

Today, Yakult is sold in 28 countries, although its bacteria cultures are provided from a mother strain from Japan regardless of production location.

Yakult is marketed in different sizes. In Australia, Europe and Indonesia, Yakult comes in 65mL bottles. In the USA and the Philippines, 80 ml bottles are available. Whereas in Taiwan and China, it comes in 100 ml bottles. In South Korea, where it is also produced, it is called yakult (hangul: 야쿠르트) and is marketed by the Korea Yakult company.

Ingredients
Standard Yakult (excludes variations such as in Yakult Light) contains :
 * Sugar (sucrose) to help keep the bacteria alive
 * Skim milk powder
 * Glucose
 * Natural flavours
 * Live Lactobacillus casei Shirota strain
 * Water