GUT MATE PROBIOTICS FAQ 

Q:  Which countries do you ship your products to?

A:  We are pleased to offer international shipping to the following countries:

Q:  How long does it take for deliveries to Hawaii?

A:  While we strive to ensure timely delivery, please note that some remote locations in Hawaii may experience longer delivery times. Specifically, areas such as:

• Pāhoa, Hawaii
• North Shore District

Additionally, rural areas throughout the islands may also take longer to deliver. We appreciate your understanding and patience as we work to get your order to you as quickly as possible.

Q:  What is the best time to take gut mate probiotics? Empty stomach or with or without food? 

A:  Unlike other probiotics that may require specific timing for optimal effectiveness, the advanced Bio-tract technology used in Gut Mate probiotics ensures efficient and effective release of probiotics into your gut, regardless of timing or food intake. Taking Gut Mate probiotics at any time of day, with or without food, provides the same benefits. Additionally, taking Internal Sweep prebiotic with Gut Mate is ideal. As the probiotics are slowly released into your digestive tract, the prebiotics serve as food to nourish and support their growth. 

Q: Can I take Gut Mate with Internal Sweep or do I need to wait for 30min?

A:    Yes, you can take Gut Mate and Internal Sweep at the same time. In fact it is recommenced to take them together. Internal Sweep has a lot of fibers that are food for the probiotics in Gut Mate. So it is extremely beneficial to take them together. 

Q: My credit card is charged but the order is not shipped yet?  

A:  Some companies store the credit card (CC) information on their systems and charge the CC when the order gets shipped. This increases the risk for cyber security breaches and liabilities. Instead we decided not to store customer credit card information on our systems. When you place an order on our website, we send your CC information directly to the payment processors (VISA/MasterCard/Amex), once your CC information is verified the total amount of the order is charged immediately. As a result you will see a delay between Credit Card Charge date and ship date. 

Q: Your competitors in the vitamin health store business have a probiotic that have an enteric coating of some sort that enables it to survive the stomach acids and get into the GI tract & dissolve there. I look at your product and observe there is no such coating.   How am I to believe that Gut-mate will not be destroyed by the stomach acids and dissolve in my GI tract?

A: Enteric coating is a polymer barrier to prevent the stomach acid from dissolving or degrading dietary supplements, such as probiotics. However, studies have shown that enteric coated products designed to be released in the proximal small intestine can take up to 2 hours longer to release their contents after exiting the stomach. Instead release occurs in the distal small intestine totally missing the upper small intestine window potentially reducing the bioavailability and absorption.

To overcome these challenges, Gut Mate uses a unique and patented probiotic delivery technology that protects probiotics from stomach acid on their journey to and through the intestinal tract. It also provides optimal release of live organisms throughout the digestive tract, in both small and large intestine.

This is the first system capable of delivering probiotics in a true sustained release method. The release of probiotics is controlled by a combination of erosion of the micro pearl excipients and diffusion of the bacteria from the polymer matrix. This allows for continuous release of probiotics slowly and evenly along the entire intestinal tract over an 8-10 hour period.

As the surface of the micro pearl hydrates with the fluid in the GI Tract, the Micro Pearl matrix swells and forms a gel barrier, protecting  probiotics from stomach acid. As the swollen region of the micro pearl erodes over time, and fluid penetrates progressively toward the core of the micro pearl, probiotics within the hydrated region of matrix are reconstituted and released into both small intestine and large intestine.

As a test, you can drop a Gut Mate probiotic into a glass of water ( or an acid to simulate the stomach acid, lime or lemon juice etc.) and see it slowly swell up. You can take the Micro Pearl out after 45 min (typical time they stay in the stomach if they are consumed with food) and check to see if the interior of the Micro Pearl is still dry - which is where the lyophilized probiotics are still in suspended animation. As soon as they come in contact with fluids they are reanimated and released into the GI tract. That is why Gut Mate only hydrates few layers at a time to wake the probiotics just in those regions and release them into the GI Tract. Rest of the probiotics in the dry areas are sill in their lyophilized state.

Links to the US patents (8,007,777 and 7,150,623) that explain the scientific method used to demonstrate everything that was discussed above.

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