Do you take probiotics? The idea of a “healthy gut flora” might have gotten you laughed out of the room just five years ago, but they’ve slowly become far more accepted and are now firmly in the mainstream. About 1.6 percent of America (3.7 million people) took them either regularly or semi-regularly in 2017, which is 3 million more than in 2012 according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.