Why do probiotic pills sometimes contain less CFU than yogurt?

Question

My doctor recommended I take a probiotic after a round of antibiotics that is 100 million CFU whereas many yogurts advertise billions of CFU. Why is that the case?

In: Biology

Answer 1

A serving of yogurt is many times larger than your average probiotic pill. The average probiotic pill only generally has a couple milligrams or less of active ingredient, whereas a yogurt will weigh something like 150 g. So even if only 0.001% of it is CFUs, that will still be more than the pills. Plus, as another answer noted, these claims are not likely to be closely regulated.

Also, there isn’t any particular reason why the pills *should* have more CFUs than yogurt.