One product, one panel, one record.
Garden of Life Dr. Formulated Pre, Post & Probiotics 100 Billion CFU (30 ct) — label audit
The brand's own page says the product uses "clinically studied strains used in the amounts shown to be effective in human clinical trials." The label discloses no per-strain amounts — only two blend-level subtotals across 18 strains. The strongest substantiation claim in this batch sits on the panel least able to be checked against it.
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 Audited 2026-07-31, outside the frozen founding cohort of 27 and outside every D27 denominator.
- 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.
The Label Verifiability Score for this product
67.7 out of 100
Rank 57 of the 154 products in this audit the rubric can score.
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 | 18 of 18 organism slots carry a printed strain designator. | 18 / 18 = 1.0000 | 0.2400 |
| Per-organism amount printed | 0.20 | 0 of 18 organism slots have an amount of its own; the rest are inside a blend total. | 0 / 18 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| What the CFU count is measured against | 0.22 | Potency basis "through-expiry": 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 | 11 of 18 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. | 11 / 18 = 0.6111 | 0.122222 |
| 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 |
0.582222 — the last column added up — divided by 0.86, the weight this record could answer, is 0.6770. Multiplied by 100 and rounded to one decimal, that is the 67.7 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 | 100 Billion CFU (60 billion Bifido, 40 billion Lacto) across a 300 mg blend |
| What that count is measured against | Through expiry |
| Strain designators | All organisms coded |
| Organism slots transcribed here | 18 — the full panel |
| Marketed as | Unisex |
"Total Probiotic Cultures: 100 billion CFU (At expiration date under recommended storage conditions. Store in a cool, dry place.)"
The panel’s own words on potency, verbatim.
The panel guarantees the count through the expiration or best-by date. This is the only basis that is falsifiable by a reader holding the bottle.
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 animalis lactis | BL818 | — not stated separately | No records | — |
| Bifidobacterium lactis | HN019 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Bifidobacterium lactis | Bl-04 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Bifidobacterium breve | Bb-03 | — not stated separately | No records | — |
| Bifidobacterium longum | BI-05 | — not stated separately | No records | — |
| Bifidobacterium bifidum | Bb-06 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Bifidobacterium infantis | BI-26 | — not stated separately | No records | — |
| Lactobacillus plantarum | LP-115 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lactobacillus paracasei | LPC-37 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lactobacillus rhamnosus | HN001 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lactobacillus casei | LC-11 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lactobacillus acidophilus | LA-14 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lactobacillus salivarius | LS-33 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lactobacillus rhamnosus | GG | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lactobacillus gasseri | LG-36 | — not stated separately | No records | — |
| Lactobacillus acidophilus | NCFM | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lactobacillus bulgaricus | LB-87 | — not stated separately | No records | — |
| Lactobacillus brevis | LBR-35 | — not stated separately | No records | — |
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.
- NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record — DSLD 326762 (opens in a new tab) captured On-market. UPC cross-check passed — the brand page's "Item 658010131797" matches DSLD UPC 6 58010 13179 7. Superseded record 297667 (2023, off-market).
- Internet Archive capture — 20260516174418 (opens in a new tab) captured Source for price and for the "amounts shown to be effective" claim. The brand's stated "$1.31/serving" is accurate — this SKU is one capsule per serving.
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, 11 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
$1.31 a day at the dose the label itself instructs.
- Price
- $39.19 USD
- What that buys
- 30-capsule bottle (30 servings, 1 capsule daily)
- Price checked
- — the source we read it from (opens in a new tab)
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Non-GMO Project Verified | Register unreachable | 31 July 2026 |
| NSF Certified Gluten-Free | Register unreachable | 31 July 2026 |
| Certified B Corporation | Register unreachable | 31 July 2026 |
Non-GMO Project Verified
The certifier’s register could not be queried at all. That is a finding about the verification infrastructure, not about the brand.
nongmoproject.org exposes no queryable verified-product database; its only queryable API indexes blog posts.
NSF Certified Gluten-Free
The certifier’s register could not be queried at all. That is a finding about the verification infrastructure, not about the brand.
nsf.org returns HTTP 403.
Certified B Corporation
The certifier’s register could not be queried at all. That is a finding about the verification infrastructure, not about the brand.
bcorporation.net returns HTTP 403.
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 Compared against the same brand's men's SKU rather than a women's one: Dr. Formulated Once Daily Men's 50 Billion (DSLD 275467, current on-market record). Diffed .
What the two panels differ by
- This ungendered SKU names all 18 of its strains. The current men's SKU names none of its 15. Same brand, same Dr. Formulated line, both on-market. DSLD 326762 (18 of 18 designated) versus DSLD 275467 (0 of 15)
- 100 billion CFU here against 50 billion on the men's SKU, and a probiotic blend of 300 mg against 218 mg. DSLD 326762 versus DSLD 275467
- This SKU adds a PreforPro bacteriophage prebiotic blend (100 mg) and an upcycled postbiotic blend (50 mg). The men's SKU has a larger plain prebiotic fibre blend (365 mg, potato and acacia only) and no postbiotic. DSLD 326762 versus DSLD 275467
- $1.31 a day here against $1.23 a day for the men's SKU. Eight cents a day is the price of being told what you are buying. Wayback 20260516174418 ($39.19) versus Wayback 20260420213209 ($36.79)
What is identical across the pair
- CFU guaranteed at expiration date on both panels
- 30 capsules, one capsule per serving, 30 servings, on both
Every finding on this page, with the record behind it
Finding 1 amounts-shown-to-be-effective-on-a-label-with-no-amounts
The page says the product contains "clinically studied strains used in the amounts shown to be effective in human clinical trials". The panel publishes two blend-level subtotals across 18 strains and no per-strain amount at all. The claim asserts dose-matching that the label makes impossible to check, and it is the strongest substantiation claim in this batch.
The record: Wayback 20260516174418, brand page copy verbatim, against DSLD 326762 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 2 seven-of-eighteen-strains-have-no-located-human-trial
BL818, Bb-03, BI-05, BI-26, LG-36, LB-87 and LBR-35 return nothing under any spelling, inside a product whose page headline is "Clinically Studied & Diverse". Three more (LC-11, Bb-06, LP-115) appear only as components of multi-strain blends.
The record: PubMed title/abstract screens with second-spelling checks on every zero, 2026-07-31
Finding 3 strain-count-and-organism-diversity-are-not-the-same-number
Four of the 18 entries are Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis or its metabolites — BL818, HN019, Bl-04, plus the BL818-derived postbiotic. L. rhamnosus and L. acidophilus each appear twice.
The record: DSLD 326762
Finding 4 the-brand-spells-one-of-its-own-strains-two-ways
B. breve is "Bb-03" here and "BB-3" on the Gas & Bloating sibling. Same brand, same line, two spellings of one organism, and PubMed's "B. breve B-3" is a third, different strain.
The record: DSLD 326762 versus DSLD 326764 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 5 preforpro-dose-is-less-than-half-that-of-the-cheaper-sibling
100 mg here against 220 mg on the Gas & Bloating SKU, which costs less. The phage count is identical at four. Neither page explains the difference.
The record: DSLD 326762 versus DSLD 326764
Finding 6 no-named-third-party-lab-and-no-contents-certification
Uniquely in this batch, a competitor beats Garden of Life on testing disclosure while losing badly on strain disclosure — Physician's Choice names Eurofins and Light Labs; Garden of Life names no laboratory on any SKU here.
The record: Wayback 20260516174418 versus physicianschoice.com/pages/quality-standards-and-testing
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.
- Non-GMO Project Verified status
- nongmoproject.org exposes no queryable verified-product database; its only queryable API indexes blog posts.
- NSF Certified Gluten-Free status
- nsf.org returns HTTP 403.
- Certified B Corporation status
- bcorporation.net returns HTTP 403.
- Per-strain CFU
- 60 billion across 7 Bifido strains and 40 billion across 11 Lacto strains, with no allocation. GG and HN019, the strains with the deepest literature, could each be a rounding error and the label would be unchanged. This is what makes the brand's dose-matching claim unfalsifiable.
- Any live brand page
- gardenoflife.com returns HTTP 403 to all automated fetching, confirmed on two independent paths.
- Any live Amazon price
- Amazon serves captchas to direct fetches.
- Any certification, at any issuer register
- NSF 403, B Corp 403, Non-GMO Project not queryable.
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.
Only six labels in this project designate more organisms than this one. Eighteen organisms, eighteen strain designators, Bifido and Lacto subtotals, CFU guaranteed at the expiration date on the panel. Nothing else audited here designates as many.
It also carries the least checkable claim in its batch, printed by the brand on its own page: “clinically studied strains used in the amounts shown to be effective in human clinical trials.” The label discloses no per-strain amounts. Sixty billion CFU is spread across seven Bifido strains and forty billion across eleven Lacto strains, with no allocation, so the sentence asserts a dose match that the panel underneath it makes impossible to verify or refute. Seven of the eighteen strains, meanwhile, have no located human trial at all under any spelling.
The comparison that matters most is inside the brand’s own catalogue. Garden of Life sells Dr. Formulated Once Daily Men’s 50 Billion in this same line, currently on market, with zero of 15 strains named. This ungendered SKU names all 18, at twice the CFU, with a phage prebiotic and a postbiotic — for eight cents a day more.
That is the cleanest argument this site can make that “men’s probiotic” is a marketing tier and not a formulation tier. The men’s buyer is the one being sold anonymity, and he is barely saving anything for it.