One product, one panel, one record.
Align Probiotic 24/7 Digestive Support — label audit
The panel guarantees 1 x 10⁷ CFU until the best-by date behind a 1 x 10⁹ headline — 1% of the advertised dose — and the brand's own page never prints a CFU figure at all: the token "billion" appears zero times in the page HTML, so a shopper on Align's own site cannot learn the dose of its flagship in any unit without opening a JPEG.
This page is an audit of a label. It records what this product’s panel discloses, what of that could be checked against a primary record, and what could not. The score below ranks this product on that disclosure and on nothing else.
The record this page rests on
- NIH label record
- Label read on
- The most recent dated artefact behind this page. Labels change; this is how old our reading of it is.
- Cohort
- Addendum — outside the founding denominators Torn down 2026-07-31, after the founding cohort of 27 was frozen. It sits outside every D27 denominator the site publishes.
- How deep this went
- Full forensic teardown Panel transcribed, every strain designator queried, every certification chased to its issuer’s own register, and the literature behind each marketing claim opened and read.
The Label Verifiability Score for this product
100.0 out of 100
Rank 1 of the 154 products in this audit the rubric can score. This rank is shared with 18 other products — 19 products sit on 100.0 and are tied. They hold the position jointly; no tiebreaker is applied, because every tiebreaker available here would be a number the rubric deliberately refused to weigh, smuggled back in to make a list look tidier.
The score measures one thing: how much of what you are buying this company tells you, and how much of that survives being checked against a source that is not the company. It does not measure whether the product works — this site holds no efficacy data of its own, and 0 of 294 organism slots in the founding cohort carry a strain with a human randomised trial for any male-specific outcome, so nobody in this category has evidence that would support a ranking by effect.
Computed over 86% of the rubric by weight — the share of the five questions below this record could answer. The remaining question is unanswered, and unanswered is not nought: it leaves the divisor rather than dragging the score down. That share travels with the number and is never dropped — this score over 86% of the weight and the same score over all of it are different claims.
| Component | Weight | What was counted, and where | Fraction | Weight × fraction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strain identity printed on the panel | 0.24 | 1 of 1 organism slot carries a printed strain designator. | 1 / 1 = 1.0000 | 0.2400 |
| Per-organism amount printed | 0.20 | 1 of 1 organism slot has an amount of its own; the rest are inside a blend total. | 1 / 1 = 1.0000 | 0.2000 |
| What the CFU count is measured against | 0.22 | Potency basis "both-endpoints": CFU figure printed yes, single basis stated yes, basis reaches expiry yes — 3 of 3. | 3 / 3 = 1.0000 | 0.2200 |
| Printed designators that lead to a human trial | 0.20 | 1 of 1 checked organism slot resolves to at least one human randomised trial under the designator exactly as printed. This counts whether the identity leads to a trial, never what the trial found. | 1 / 1 = 1.0000 | 0.2000 |
| Certification confirmed at the issuer’s own register | 0.14 | Every certification on this record is brand-asserted with the register unreachable, or not yet queried. An unreachable register is a fact about the verification infrastructure, not about this brand, so it may not move its position. | Not answered | — excluded from the divisor, not counted as nought |
0.8600 — the last column added up — divided by 0.86, the weight this record could answer, is 1.0000. Multiplied by 100 and rounded to one decimal, that is the 100.0 above.
See this product’s row in the full ranking, alongside the other 153 scored products, or read what each of the five components asks and how to check it .
What this label discloses
Everything in this table is what the product itself states — on the printed panel, on the brand’s own page, or in the label record the manufacturer filed. Nothing in it is checked yet; checking is the next section.
| Disclosure | As recorded |
|---|---|
| CFU as printed | 1 x 10⁹ CFU when manufactured; 1 x 10⁷ probiotic cells until the "best by" date |
| What that count is measured against | Both endpoints printed |
| Strain designators | All organisms coded |
| Organism slots transcribed here | 1 — the full panel |
| Marketed as | Unisex |
"† Contains one billion (1 x 10⁹ CFU) probiotic cells when manufactured, and provides 1 x 10⁷ probiotic cells until the 'best by' date."
The panel’s own words on potency, verbatim.
The panel prints both a manufacture figure and an expiration figure, so the decline over shelf life is readable off the label itself.
Every organism on the panel carries a printed strain designator. Whether those designators lead anywhere is a separate question, answered below.
| Organism as printed | Designator as printed | Quantity as printed | What the designator resolves to | The query we ran |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum | 35624™ | 10 mg per capsule | Human RCT | ("Bifidobacterium 35624"[tiab] OR "Bifidobacterium longum 35624"[tiab] OR "Bifidobacterium infantis 35624"[tiab] OR "UCC35624"[tiab] OR "UCC 35624"[tiab] OR "NCIMB 41003"[tiab]) AND randomized controlled trial[pt] AND humans[mh] → 8 |
What of that is verifiable
A disclosure is verifiable when a reader can open a record that neither we nor the brand controls and see the same thing. Below is every dated artefact this page rests on. What is absent from this list is not verified, however reasonable it sounds.
- Photograph of the printed panel — 9_00037000143437_Label_Facts_21146132.jpg captured The brand's own Supplement Facts image, served from images.ctfassets.net and transcribed by direct reading. This is the current 2026 carton and the source for every figure on this page. The GTIN 00037000143437 embedded in the filename matches both the live 28-count variant and DSLD 278084 — a three-way tie, so the panel is definitively this SKU.
- NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record — DSLD 278084 (opens in a new tab) captured On-market federal record, 28 ct, UPC 0 37000 14343 7. Sibling records: 278088 (14 ct, UPC 0 37000 93952 8), 277459 (off-market, same UPC as 278084) and 179073 / 179074 (2018 generation, carrying the organism as "Bifidobacterium infantis 35624 (Alt. Name: Bifantis)"). Cited for identity, for the organism and for label statements. Not cited for the strain mass, which this record puts at 4 mg against the current carton's 10 mg.
How many of its strains have a human trial for what it is sold for
Across the frozen founding cohort, 0 of 294 organism slots (0.0%) carry an organism with a human randomised controlled trial for any male-specific outcome. Not for this product — for all 27 of the founding teardowns, taken together. That is the number to hold against any men’s probiotic, including this one.
Two further founding-cohort figures for context: only 43 of 294 organism slots carry a strain with any human RCT at all under the exact code printed on the label, and only 2 of 27 products have a published human trial of the finished formula — the thing actually in the bottle. All three figures divide by the frozen cohort of 27 teardowns and 294 organism slots, never by every teardown on this site.
For this product specifically, 1 organism slot carries a strain with a human RCT under the exact designator printed on the label.
A word on what a designator has to clear before it counts here. The organism must be named with the exact strain code that appears in the trial, the trial must be in humans, and the code must return that trial when a reader searches it. A species name does not qualify: the trials in this field are of strains, and a species contains thousands of them.
What it costs per day
What certification it holds, checked at the issuer’s own register
A badge on a bottle is a claim like any other. Every row below was checked — or not checked — at the certifier’s own public register, never at the badge. Across the frozen founding cohort, 2 of 27 products hold a certification we could confirm at the issuer — a founding-cohort figure, not a count over every teardown on this site.
| Programme | Status at the issuer | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| "Each lot is DNA tested to ensure it contains our unique strain, Bifidobacterium 35624™" | Brand-asserted, unverified | 31 July 2026 |
"Each lot is DNA tested to ensure it contains our unique strain, Bifidobacterium 35624™"
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
In-house identity testing. No issuer, no standard named, no certificate published, no register to query. It answers "is the right organism in there", not "how many are alive". A word-boundary scan of the page for NSF, USP Verified, Informed-Choice, Non-GMO Project, ConsumerLab, cGMP, "third-party", "certified by", Clean Label and BSCG returned zero hits on all ten tokens. The correct status for this product is no certification, not unverified certification — nothing is claimed to check.
How it differs from the same brand’s women’s version
Across the fourteen same-brand men’s-versus-women’s label diffs run inside the frozen founding cohort, zero men’s or default formulas contain a probiotic strain, identified by designator, that was selected on male-specific evidence. In eight of the fourteen the sex-specific differentiator is a botanical or a mineral, and in five of the fourteen the women’s SKU is better-specified, cheaper, or both — “better-specified” meaning the panel that discloses more, never the panel with more in it. The rule behind each of those counts, and all fourteen pairs classified against it , are published in full. Diffs run on teardowns added since sit outside this fourteen, and outside the sentence above.
Compared against Align Probiotic Women's Dual Action. Diffed .
What the two panels differ by
- The women's SKU guarantees its CFU at the best-by date and prints no at-manufacture number at all — "† Provides 6 billion (6 x 10⁹ CFU) of probiotic cells until the 'best by' date." This SKU prints 1 billion at manufacture and 10 million at best-by, so 1% of its headline is guaranteed against the women's product's 100%. Panel 8_00030772032565_Label_Facts_111295726.png versus panel 9_00037000143437_Label_Facts_21146132.jpg, both read 2026-07-31
- The women's SKU adds two further designated organisms — Lactobacillus acidophilus La-14® and Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus HN001™, 33 mg together — with 49 human RCTs between them at their exact designators, plus a 42 mg chaste tree (Vitex agnus-castus L.) berry extract with its own literature. This SKU carries one organism and no botanical. Panel 8_00030772032565_Label_Facts_111295726.png, 2026-07-31; PubMed ("La-14"[tiab] OR "La14"[tiab] OR "Lactobacillus acidophilus La-14"[tiab]) → 102 and ("HN001"[tiab] OR "HN-001"[tiab] OR "DR20"[tiab]) → 170, of which 49 are human RCTs
- The women's panel lists no titanium dioxide. This SKU lists "titanium dioxide (color)" in its own other-ingredients line, in a product whose entire proposition is what you swallow daily. Both panels, transcribed 2026-07-31
What is identical across the pair
- Both carry Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum 35624™ at 10 mg per capsule.
- Both are one capsule daily in a 28-count carton.
Every finding on this page, with the record behind it
Finding 1 at-manufacture-headline-with-a-guaranteed-floor-100x-lower
1 billion CFU at manufacture, 10 million guaranteed until the best-by date. 99% of the advertised dose is not guaranteed for any of the product's shelf life. Credit where it is owed: the basis is printed plainly in the panel footnote rather than hidden, and the word used is honestly "CFU" at both ends.
The record: Panel JPEG 9_00037000143437_Label_Facts_21146132.jpg footnote, transcribed 2026-07-31
Finding 2 guaranteed-potency-asserted-on-a-page-that-states-no-cfu-number
The page carries "Align Probiotics contain guaranteed potency and levels of live probiotic CFUs in each dose" while the token "billion" appears zero times in the page HTML and no absolute CFU figure appears anywhere on it. What is guaranteed is the 10 million, and the only place a shopper can find any number at all is inside a label image.
The record: alignprobiotics.com 24/7 Digestive Support page, full-text token scan, 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.alignprobiotics.com/en-us/products/probiotics-digestive-support/probiotic-supplement — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 3 supplement-facts-published-only-as-a-raster-image
The Supplement Facts panel exists only as a JPEG on the brand's CDN. A screen reader, a price-comparison tool or any automated checker cannot read what is in this product. Three of three panels in this batch, across two brands, both serving fully modern and fully fetchable HTML.
The record: Panel image 9_00037000143437_Label_Facts_21146132.jpg; page HTML carries no text panel, 2026-07-31
Finding 4 the-federal-record-says-4-mg-and-the-carton-says-10-mg
DSLD 278084, 278088 and 277459 state 4 mg of 35624; the current carton states 10 mg; the CFU footnote is identical in both. The strain mass rose 2.5× with no change in declared CFU. Two consequences: the federal record is stale against this carton, and milligrams do not track CFU — the brand's own labels put 4 mg and 10 mg of the same strain at the same 1 billion.
The record: DSLD 278084 (entered 2022-11-22) versus panel JPEG 9_00037000143437_Label_Facts_21146132.jpg, 2026-07-31 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 5 no-price-anywhere-on-the-brands-own-site
No price field, no currency field and no cart on the brand's own product page, on a pharmacy-shelf product from Procter & Gamble. Live variant GTINs are published for six pack sizes; a price for none of them.
The record: alignprobiotics.com __NEXT_DATA__ payload, "price": null on every product, 2026-07-31
Finding 6 titanium-dioxide-as-a-cosmetic-colourant
The other-ingredients line reads: microcrystalline cellulose, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose; less than 2% of magnesium stearate and titanium dioxide (color). The colour is cosmetic. The brand's own women's SKU manages the same delivery format with no titanium dioxide at all.
The record: Panel JPEG 9_00037000143437_Label_Facts_21146132.jpg versus 8_00030772032565_Label_Facts_111295726.png, 2026-07-31
Finding 7 efficacy-substituted-by-authority-and-sentiment
"#1 probiotic recommended by Gastroenterologists for over 15 years running" is a survey of recommendation behaviour, not a trial of whether the product works. "4 out of 5 people felt more confident with their digestive health" is self-reported confidence — feeling more confident about digestive health is not having better digestive health. Both carry the persuasive load on a page whose efficacy wording is otherwise disciplined and correctly disclaimed.
The record: alignprobiotics.com marketing copy, read verbatim 2026-07-31; the confidence statistic is footnoted to 1,612 own-site reviews as of 3/31/2021
Finding 8 developed-by-gastroenterologists-attaches-to-the-strain-not-to-this-dose
"Developed by Gastroenterologists and backed by 20+ years of research" is scoped to the organism, not to this quantity or this formulation. The eight RCTs are real and they are trials of 35624; none of them is a trial of this carton.
The record: alignprobiotics.com claim text and PubMed alias-block count of 8 RCTs, both 2026-07-31
What we could not verify
Every gap below is published rather than deleted. Most are derived automatically from the empty fields in this page’s own record, so a gap cannot be hidden by leaving a box blank.
- "Each lot is DNA tested to ensure it contains our unique strain, Bifidobacterium 35624™" status
- In-house identity testing. No issuer, no standard named, no certificate published, no register to query. It answers "is the right organism in there", not "how many are alive". A word-boundary scan of the page for NSF, USP Verified, Informed-Choice, Non-GMO Project, ConsumerLab, cGMP, "third-party", "certified by", Clean Label and BSCG returned zero hits on all ten tokens. The correct status for this product is no certification, not unverified certification — nothing is claimed to check.
- A US retail price, and therefore the cost per day
- Align publishes no price and no cart on its own site — the Next.js __NEXT_DATA__ payload carries "price": null on every product. Every retailer fallback failed this session: Amazon geo-suppressed ("This item cannot be shipped to your selected delivery location", corePrice_desktop empty), iHerb 403, Walgreens HTTP/2 INTERNAL_ERROR, Target bot-blocked (HTTP 200 with zero price tokens in the body). No aggregator figure was substituted. Cost per day is therefore unverified for the #1 doctor-recommended pharmacy probiotic brand, which is itself the finding.
- Any US retail price, and therefore any cost per day
- The brand's own payload carries "price": null and the site has no cart. Amazon was geo-suppressed, iHerb returned 403, Walgreens returned HTTP/2 INTERNAL_ERROR and Target was bot-blocked. No aggregator figure was substituted.
- Funding source and author conflicts of interest for the eight cited RCTs
- Titles and counts were read; full texts were not. No funding characterisation may be published from this record.
- The blend mass on the current carton against the federal record
- DSLD 278084, 278088 and 277459 all state 4 mg of 35624; the live 2026 label image states 10 mg, with the CFU footnote byte-identical in both. Both figures are correctly sourced — the federal records were entered 2022-11-22 and are stale against the current carton — but the two cannot be reconciled from the outside, and anyone checking DSLD alone will report a mass 2.5× lower than the product on the shelf.
How to check every line of this page yourself
Nothing on this page requires trusting us. Every claim above resolves to a record you can open:
- Open the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record linked at the top of this page. It is the label the manufacturer filed, not our transcription of it.
- Compare the CFU line and the suggested-use line against the disclosure table above. If they disagree with us, we are wrong and we want to know.
- Take any strain designator from the panel and run the query printed beside it. The query is published precisely so you can get a different answer than we did.
- Divide the price by the number of days the label’s own dose instructions make the container last. That arithmetic is the whole of the cost-per-day row.
- Search the certifier’s own register for this product, not for the brand. A company can participate in a programme without this product being on its list.
One billion is the number on the box. Ten million is the number you are promised.
The footnote is the whole product. ”† Contains one billion (1 x 10⁹ CFU) probiotic cells when manufactured, and provides 1 x 10⁷ probiotic cells until the ‘best by’ date.” That is a hundredfold gap, which means 1% of the advertised dose is guaranteed for any of the shelf life the bottle actually has. Align states the basis plainly instead of hiding it, and it uses the honest unit at both ends — real credit, both times. What it does not do is print either number where a shopper can see it. Scanned in full, the token “billion” appears zero times in the page HTML. The brand page simultaneously asserts that “Align Probiotics contain guaranteed potency and levels of live probiotic CFUs in each dose.”
The strain, though, is the good kind. Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum 35624™ at 10 mg per capsule — a genuine designator, also catalogued as NCIMB 41003 / UCC35624, with eight human randomised trials at the exact code. One organism, no proprietary blend, one capsule a day, a short excipient list. Reproduce the count with the five-alias block or you will understate the literature six-fold: the naive single-name query returns 48 total records where the alias block returns the same 8 RCTs against a much larger base. There is no male-endocrine literature on this strain — two query formulations, two zeros — which is consistent with a brand that makes no male claim.
Milligrams are not CFU, and this label proves it. The federal records say 4 mg of 35624; the carton on the shelf says 10 mg; the CFU footnote is identical in both. The strain mass rose two and a half times with no change in declared potency. Anyone checking DSLD alone reports a mass 2.5× below the current product, and any comparison anywhere that infers dose from milligrams is measuring carrier.
Two more. There is no certification of any kind — ten certification tokens scanned, zero hits, and the brand’s own quality claim is “Each lot is DNA tested”, which is in-house identity testing with no issuer and no register, and which answers whether the right organism is present rather than how much of it is alive. And there is no price: no price field, no currency, no cart on the brand’s own site, with every retailer route blocked this session. For the pharmacy brand that leads on “#1 recommended by Gastroenterologists”, the two things a buyer most needs — the guaranteed dose and the cost — are the two things the site will not print.