One product, one panel, one record.
Designs for Health Probiophage DF, 60 capsules (SKU PBDF60) — label audit
The page states, verbatim, "Strain identification provided for transparency." The Supplement Facts panel provides seven species inside a proprietary blend and no strain identification whatsoever. The product identifies its four bacteriophages more precisely than it identifies any of its bacteria.
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
- No NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record is on file for this product in this teardown.
- 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 Audited 2026-07-31, after the founding cohort of 27 was frozen. It sits outside every D27 denominator this site publishes.
- How deep this went
- Label audit — the lighter pass What the label says, what basis it gives for its CFU number, whether the strains are coded, whether a government label record exists — checked and published. No full claim inventory was written for this SKU. It is a real result, and it is a shallower one than the teardowns above it, which is why the page says so before you weigh it against them.
- What did not survive verification
- Part of this page was refuted or could not be reproduced The panel on this page did not come from the carton, and it did not come from a government record either. Designs for Health publishes no Supplement Facts panel on its product pages in any form — no table, no panel image, no PDF — and this product has no DSLD record, an absence verified with five independent queries plus a 49-SKU brand sweep. The seven species, the 295 mg proprietary blend, the 5 billion CFU total, the four bacteriophage identifiers and the absence of any footnote all rest on two independent practitioner-retailer transcriptions that agree with each other. That is strong evidence and it is not a label read, so any statement here about what the physical carton prints — including the statement that no CFU basis appears anywhere on it — is bounded to the surfaces a buyer can actually reach. A second, smaller item: the brand's own page states two different capsule counts for its other size, 20 in the prose and 120 in the offer block, so no cost per day is published for PBDF20 at all and only the 60-capsule size is priced here. What did survive verification in full: the "Strain identification provided for transparency" claim, quoted from the brand's own live page and refuted by its own panel; the complete absence of any strain designator across all seven organisms; the absence of a DSLD record, confirmed on five query spellings; and the NSF/ANSI 173 negative, read at the issuer's own register where Designs for Health is listed with exactly one certified product and it is not this one.
The Label Verifiability Score for this product
7.3 out of 100
Rank 152 of the 154 products in this audit the rubric can score. This rank is shared with 1 other product — 2 products sit on 7.3 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 the whole rubric: this record answers all five questions below, so nothing is renormalised away and the divisor is the full 1.00. That share travels with every score on this site and is never dropped — a score over part of the rubric’s 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 | 0 of 7 organism slots carry a printed strain designator. | 0 / 7 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| Per-organism amount printed | 0.20 | 0 of 7 organism slots have an amount of its own; the rest are inside a blend total. | 0 / 7 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| What the CFU count is measured against | 0.22 | Potency basis "none-stated": CFU figure printed yes, single basis stated no, basis reaches expiry no — 1 of 3. | 1 / 3 = 0.3333 | 0.073333 |
| Printed designators that lead to a human trial | 0.20 | 0 of 7 checked organism slots resolve 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. | 0 / 7 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| Certification confirmed at the issuer’s own register | 0.14 | 1 claimed certification queried at the issuer’s register and not listed there. | 0 / 1 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
0.073333 — the last column added up — divided by 1.00, the weight this record could answer, is 0.0733. Multiplied by 100 and rounded to one decimal, that is the 7.3 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 | Proprietary Probiotic Blend — 295 mg (5 billion CFU) |
| What that count is measured against | No basis stated |
| Strain designators | None — species only |
| Organism slots transcribed here | 7 — the full panel |
| Marketed as | Unisex |
There is nothing to quote. The panel carries no footnote of any kind — no at-expiry, no at-manufacture, no storage-qualified guarantee. What the page does say is "Refrigeration is recommended and will ensure maximum potency and shelf life", which is a shelf-stability caveat on a product that guarantees potency at no point in shelf life at all.
The panel’s own words on potency, verbatim.
A CFU number appears with no temporal basis of any kind. A count with no basis is not a quantity; there is no date at which it is claimed to be true.
The panel names species only, with no strain designator anywhere. A species name is not a claim: the trials in this field are of strains, and a species can contain thousands.
| Organism as printed | Designator as printed | Quantity as printed | What the designator resolves to | The query we ran |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lactobacillus acidophilus | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Bifidobacterium bifidum | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Bifidobacterium longum | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Lactobacillus rhamnosus (correct name: Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus) | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Lactobacillus casei (correct name: Lacticaseibacillus casei) | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Streptococcus thermophilus | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Bifidobacterium breve | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
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.
- Dated capture of the brand’s own page — dfh-probiophage-df-pdp-2026-07-31https://www.designsforhealth.com/products/probiophage-df — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits. captured Fetched directly, HTTP 200, no bot block. Source for both prices from the page's own ld+json offer block ($69.99 for PBDF60 and $123.49 for PBDF20), for the "Strain identification provided for transparency" claim verbatim, for the contradictory pack-size statements, and for the refrigeration recommendation. It is also an artefact behind a finding: the page contains no Supplement Facts panel in any form — no table, no image, no PDF.
- Dated capture of the brand’s own page — probiophage-df-retailer-transcriptions-psc-and-nhc-2026-07-31 captured The only surface on which this product's panel exists. Two independent practitioner retailers — Professional Supplement Center and Natural Healthy Concepts — reproducing the panel as text, identical to each other. Source for the serving size, the 295 mg / 5 billion CFU proprietary blend line, the seven species names, the four bacteriophage identifiers in the PrePhage blend, the other-ingredients list, and the absence of any footnote. Recorded without a URL on purpose: the audit records these retailers by name and by reachability rather than by address, and this project does not reconstruct a URL it did not fetch. This is not the carton, and the record says so rather than implying a label read that did not happen.
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, 0 organism slots carry 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
$1.17 a day at the dose the label itself instructs.
- Price
- $69.99 USD
- What that buys
- 60-capsule bottle (SKU PBDF60, 60 servings, 1 capsule daily)
- Price checked
- — the source we read it fromhttps://www.designsforhealth.com/products/probiophage-df — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| NSF/ANSI 173 contents certification | Absent from register | 31 July 2026 |
| Per-batch certificate of analysis | Brand-asserted, unverified | 31 July 2026 |
NSF/ANSI 173 contents certification
The register was queried and this product is not listed on it.
Verified at the issuer's own register. Designs for Health is listed — with exactly one certified product, "Pro Greens + Reds", at the Broomfield, Colorado facility. Probiophage DF is not NSF contents-certified. Note that no certification mark is claimed on this product page, so this is a plain negative rather than a caught false claim.
Per-batch certificate of analysis
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
The brand's certificate-of-analysis page states "We test every batch… Each Certificate of Analysis (COA) confirms that your product has been third-party tested and verified." The published list carries lot-linked COAs for only a handful of SKUs; the overwhelming majority, including this one, read "Please call customer service … to request a COA." Batch COA is not self-service here. Scope limit: no phone call was made, so the claim is recorded as unverified rather than refuted.
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.
This brand sells no women’s counterpart to this product, so there is no diff to run.
Every finding on this page, with the record behind it
Finding 1 the-transparency-claim-is-false-against-the-brands-own-label
Under "Key Ingredients / Formula Highlights" the page states, verbatim: "Strain identification provided for transparency." The Supplement Facts panel provides species names inside a proprietary blend and no strain identification whatsoever. Brand claim on the brand's own page; panel from two independent retailers that agree with each other.
The record: designsforhealth.com/products/probiophage-df Formula Highlights, verbatim, against the panel as transcribed at Professional Supplement Center and Natural Healthy Concepts, all 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.designsforhealth.com/products/probiophage-df — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 2 the-product-identifies-its-viruses-more-precisely-than-its-bacteria
The four phage components carry identifiers — LH01-Myoviridae, LL5-Siphoviridae, T4D-Myoviridae, LL12-Myoviridae. The seven bacteria carry none. Whatever the reason, that is the disclosure a buyer actually gets.
The record: Panel transcription, PrePhage Bacteriophage Prebiotic Blend line, 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.designsforhealth.com/products/probiophage-df — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 3 seven-species-sharing-one-undivided-five-billion
Proprietary Probiotic Blend, 295 mg, 5 billion CFU, seven organisms, no per-organism amount. The average would be about 714 million each and nothing on the label prevents six of them from being tokens.
The record: Panel transcription identical at two independent practitioner retailers, 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.designsforhealth.com/products/probiophage-df — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 4 no-cfu-basis-of-any-kind
The panel carries no footnote at all — no at-expiry, no at-manufacture — while the page recommends refrigeration to "ensure maximum potency and shelf life". A stability caveat with no potency floor behind it.
The record: Panel transcription and designsforhealth.com storage recommendation, both 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.designsforhealth.com/products/probiophage-df — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 5 the-page-asserts-two-different-pack-sizes-for-the-same-sku
The Product Education section says "Available as PBDF20 (20 capsules) and PBDF60 (60 capsules)" while the ld+json offer block on the same page prices PBDF20 as "Probiophage DF™ (120 capsules)" at $123.49. The SKU is either 20 or 120 capsules; the page asserts both, and a buyer reading the prose would compute a cost per day six times too high.
The record: designsforhealth.com/products/probiophage-df Product Education section versus the ld+json offer block on the same page, 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.designsforhealth.com/products/probiophage-df — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 6 no-government-label-record-after-a-decade-on-the-market
Five independent DSLD queries plus a 49-SKU brand sweep confirm this product is absent from the US government's label database, on a SKU whose Amazon listing dates to 2014. There is no independent transcription of this label anywhere in the public record.
The record: DSLD queries Probiophage, Probio Phage, PreforPro, bacteriophage Designs for Health, and a brand-scoped Probiophage DF query; 49-SKU brand sweep, all 2026-07-31 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 7 not-nsf-certified-while-the-brand-holds-one-nsf-listing
Designs for Health is listed at NSF with exactly one certified product, Pro Greens + Reds. Probiophage DF is not on the register. No NSF claim is made on this page, so this is a plain negative rather than a contradicted claim.
The record: info.nsf.org/Certified/Dietary/Listings.asp queried for Designs for Health, 2026-07-31 — open it (opens in a new tab)
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.
- Per-batch certificate of analysis status
- The brand's certificate-of-analysis page states "We test every batch… Each Certificate of Analysis (COA) confirms that your product has been third-party tested and verified." The published list carries lot-linked COAs for only a handful of SKUs; the overwhelming majority, including this one, read "Please call customer service … to request a COA." Batch COA is not self-service here. Scope limit: no phone call was made, so the claim is recorded as unverified rather than refuted.
- Any Supplement Facts panel published by the brand
- Designs for Health product pages contain no Supplement Facts panel in any form — no table, no panel image, no PDF. The pages carry marketing prose plus an ld+json offer block and nothing else. The panel on this page comes from two independent practitioner retailers, Professional Supplement Center and Natural Healthy Concepts, whose transcriptions are identical to each other. That is strong evidence and it is not the carton.
- Any government label record
- None exists, and the absence was verified with five independent queries per the project rule: "Probiophage" returns 0 hits; "Probio Phage" returns 40 hits with no Designs for Health product; "PreforPro" returns 40 hits with no Designs for Health product; "bacteriophage Designs for Health" returns 40 hits with no match; and a brand-scoped "Probiophage DF" query returns nothing new. A full brand sweep returns 49 Designs for Health SKUs — including four other probiotics, Probiotic Supreme, three Probiotic Synergy entries and FloraMyces — and no Probiophage DF. The absence is real, on a product whose Amazon listing dates to 2014.
- Any strain-level literature match
- Structurally impossible from this label. Zero of seven organisms carry a designator, so no strain literature can be matched to any slot regardless of how much searching is done.
- The evidence base for the bacteriophage component
- The PrePhage blend corresponds to the commercial preparation marketed as PreforPro. A targeted PubMed query for bacteriophage-as-prebiotic returned 9 records — a thin literature. Recorded as thin rather than absent.
- How many capsules the PBDF20 SKU contains
- The brand's own page asserts both 20 and 120. See the finding below. This page publishes only the PBDF60 60-capsule size, whose count is not in dispute.
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.
The page says this:
“Strain identification provided for transparency.”
The panel says this:
Proprietary Probiotic Blend — 295 mg (5 billion CFU) (Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium bifidum, Bifidobacterium longum, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Lactobacillus casei, Streptococcus thermophilus, Bifidobacterium breve)
Seven species. Zero strain designators. One undivided total. No ATCC, no DSM, no CNCM, no NCIMB, no GG, nothing. That is the sharpest single contradiction in its batch, and it is fully documented: the claim is on the brand’s own live page, and the panel comes from two independent practitioner retailers whose transcriptions match each other line for line.
Then there is the detail that makes it stranger. The four bacteriophage components do carry identifiers — LH01-Myoviridae, LL5-Siphoviridae, T4D-Myoviridae, LL12-Myoviridae. The product identifies its viruses more precisely than its bacteria.
At 5 billion CFU across seven organisms the average would be about 714 million each, and nothing on the label prevents six of them from being tokens. Strain-level literature matchable from this label: 0 of 7, and that is structural rather than a limit of the searching.
No CFU basis either. The panel carries no footnote of any kind, while the page recommends refrigeration to “ensure maximum potency and shelf life” — a stability caveat with no potency floor behind it.
Two things about the record. This product has no DSLD entry at all, verified on five query spellings plus a 49-SKU brand sweep, on a SKU whose Amazon listing dates to 2014. And the brand’s own page cannot agree with itself on pack size: the prose says “PBDF20 (20 capsules)” while the offer block on the same page prices PBDF20 as 120 capsules at $123.49. A buyer trusting the prose computes a cost per day six times too high.
Worth saying plainly, because fairness matters more than symmetry: no certification is claimed here at all. The NSF/ANSI 173 negative was read at the issuer’s own register — Designs for Health is listed, with exactly one certified product, and it is not this one — but nothing on this page asserts otherwise. This is a plain negative, not a caught false claim. The false claim on this page is about strains.