One product, one panel, one record.
Hyperbiotics (Vital Nutrients) Pro-15® Pre + Probiotic — label audit
The product page says this formula "has been clinically shown to ease occasional symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease". IBD is a named disease, "clinically shown" attaches to a formula PubMed returns nothing for under six spellings, and the fifteen organisms behind it are identified only to species. The same paragraph also contains a correctly drafted structure/function claim.
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
25.6 out of 100
Rank 125 of the 154 products in this audit the rubric can score. This rank is shared with 5 other products — 6 products sit on 25.6 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 | 0 of 15 organism slots carry a printed strain designator. | 0 / 15 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| Per-organism amount printed | 0.20 | 0 of 15 organism slots have an amount of its own; the rest are inside a blend total. | 0 / 15 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| 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 | 0 of 15 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 / 15 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| 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 |
0.2200 — the last column added up — divided by 0.86, the weight this record could answer, is 0.2558. Multiplied by 100 and rounded to one decimal, that is the 25.6 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¤ — 120 mg (5 Billion CFU¥) |
| What that count is measured against | Both endpoints printed |
| Strain designators | None — species only |
| Organism slots transcribed here | 15 — the full panel |
| Marketed as | Unisex |
"¥At the time of manufacture. Minimum of 1.5 Billion CFU at expiration."
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L. plantarum | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. fermentum | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. acidophilus | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| B. infantis (correct name: Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis) | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. casei | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| B. longum | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. rhamnosus | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| B. lactis (correct name: Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis) | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. reuteri | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. salivarius | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. paracasei | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. gasseri | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| B. bifidum | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| B. breve | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| S. thermophilus | — 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.
- Photograph of the printed panel — VN_AmazonSlides_VNHBP1530.REV01_SFP.jpghttps://www.vitalnutrients.co/cdn/shop/files/VN_AmazonSlides_VNHBP1530.REV01_SFP.jpg — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits. captured The brand's own panel image at 2400x2400 and fully legible, transcribed by hand. It matches DSLD 306763 line for line, which is the counter-example to this category's unreadable-JPEG problem: the panel is still image-only, but it is published at a resolution a person can actually read.
- NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record — DSLD 306763 (opens in a new tab) captured On-market federal record. UPC cross-check passes — the Shopify variant barcode 9506000058504 for SKU HBP1560 matches the record's UPC 9 506000 058504. The record independently carries the dual-endpoint potency note, "5 billion CFU at the time of manufacture. Minimum of 1.5 billion CFU at expiration." The DSLD contact for this label is Hyperbiotics at Vital Nutrients' own footer address, so the brand relationship is already reflected in the federal record. Note that the Hyperbiotics barcodes seen this session are 13-digit codes beginning 9506000 rather than 12-digit UPC-A; recorded verbatim, with no claim made about the GS1 prefix.
- Dated capture of the brand’s own page — vitalnutrients-pro-15-2026-07-31https://www.vitalnutrients.co/products/hyperbiotics-pro-15-probiotic — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits. captured HTTP 200, Shopify, with the product .js endpoint also pulled for variant pricing. Source for the claim copy, the SuppCo TrustScore text, and the certifier token scan. The retailer's own Men's Health collection was also pulled — 14 products, and Pro-15 is not among them.
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
$0.58 a day at the dose the label itself instructs.
- Price
- $34.99 USD
- What that buys
- 60-tablet bottle (60 servings, 1 pearl tablet daily). The 30 CT is $19.99, which works out to $0.67 a day. A 10% subscription discount applies at every cadence.
- Price checked
- — the source we read it fromhttps://www.vitalnutrients.co/products/hyperbiotics-pro-15-probiotic — 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 |
|---|---|---|
| SuppCo TrustScore® | Not checked | 31 July 2026 |
| Free-from and non-GMO self-declaration on the label | Brand-asserted, unverified | 31 July 2026 |
SuppCo TrustScore®
We have not queried this register for this product. It does not mean the product holds nothing.
The page's only third-party reference, described on-page as "a clear and unbiased way to measure the quality of our supplements from SuppCo, an independent third-party company... scores products on a 10-point scale based on their ability to deliver against 30+ key quality attributes". A TrustScore is a rating, not a test. Nothing was assayed and nobody counted the CFU. SuppCo's own methodology was not queried in this pass, which is why this is recorded as not checked rather than as a failed check — but a rating occupying the visual slot where a certification mark normally sits is the mildest form of the substitution this site exists to document.
Free-from and non-GMO self-declaration on the label
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
The label reads "Free of dairy, gluten, soy, peanut, tree nut, egg, fish, shellfish, active yeast, preservatives, artificial flavors and colors, and added sugar, and is non-GMO." No certifier is named. "Non-GMO" here is not "Non-GMO Project Verified".
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 Hyperbiotics PRO-Women. Diffed .
What the two panels differ by
- PRO-Men and PRO-Women each carry a 150 mg probiotic blend across 6 organisms. Pro-15 carries a 120 mg blend across 15. The gendered SKUs have fewer organisms and more blend mass. DSLD 306763 (Pro-15) versus 328457 (PRO-Men) and 306768 (PRO-Women)
- The entire gender differentiation is a 250 mg non-probiotic botanical bolted onto the same tablet architecture — a Curcumin Meriva® Indena Phytosome Blend on the men's SKU, a Cran-Gyn® D-Mannose and cranberry blend on the women's. Pro-15 has neither. DSLD 328457 and 306768 ingredient rows
What is identical across the pair
- The probiotic dose is identical across all three SKUs — 5 billion CFU at manufacture, 1.5 billion guaranteed at expiration.
- Prebiotic FOS at 25 mg on all three.
- Zero strain designators on all three.
Every finding on this page, with the record behind it
Finding 1 disease-claim-naming-inflammatory-bowel-disease
Verbatim from the product page: "this clinically studied formula replenishes beneficial bacteria throughout the gastrointestinal tract for a well-balanced gut microbiome and has been clinically shown to ease occasional symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease, including diarrhea, digestive discomfort, and absorption of key vitamins and minerals." IBD is a named disease. Under 21 CFR 101.93(g) a disease claim includes a claim to mitigate the symptoms of a specific disease, and the §101.93(c) disclaimer permits structure/function claims rather than converting a disease claim into a lawful one. The hedge "occasional" modifies symptoms; the sentence still names the disease. The brand's own adjacent sentence is drafted correctly — "occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas, and bloating" names symptoms without naming a disease. The same paragraph contains a compliant claim and a non-compliant one. This is an observation about published marketing copy, not legal advice; the citations are given so the finding can be stated precisely.
The record: vitalnutrients.co Pro-15 product page, read verbatim 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.vitalnutrients.co/products/hyperbiotics-pro-15-probiotic — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 2 clinically-studied-formula-with-zero-findable-literature
"Clinically studied formula", "Backed by clinical research", "15 science-backed probiotic strains". Six queries — Hyperbiotics, Hyperbiotic, the product name, BIO-tract, Biotract, and a combined all-fields form — return zero relevant records, with PubMed's own quotedphrasesnotfound diagnostics recorded for each so the zero is reproducible.
The record: PubMed E-utilities, six queries with querytranslation and quotedphrasesnotfound captured, run 2026-07-31
Finding 3 fifteen-species-called-fifteen-well-researched-strains
"15 well-researched probiotic strains" and "15 science-backed probiotic strains" over a panel that names fifteen species and zero designators. A species cannot be well-researched in the sense the sentence implies — efficacy is strain-specific and disease-specific.
The record: Panel image VN_AmazonSlides_VNHBP1530.REV01_SFP.jpg and DSLD 306763; anchor PMID 29868585 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 4 seventy-percent-decay-disclosed-but-not-explained
5 billion at manufacture, 1.5 billion guaranteed at expiration. The disclosure is genuinely good — it is the most complete CFU statement in its batch and lets a reader compute the decay themselves. The decay is 70%. Anyone comparing this product to a 50 or 100 billion competitor on the front-of-pack number is comparing a manufacture figure to an expiry figure, which is the confusion this category runs on.
The record: Panel image footnote and DSLD 306763 blend-row note, both verbatim, 2026-07-31 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 5 superior-results-at-a-lower-cfu-resting-on-a-benchtop-test
"This formula offers up to 15X more probiotic survivability than standard vegetarian capsules,‡ allowing us to offer superior results at a lower CFU." The ‡ footnote discloses the basis honestly — "BIO-tract® vs. instant release formulations under in vitro test conditions" — and credit is owed for that, because it could have been buried. A superiority-of-results claim is nonetheless a clinical assertion, and the evidence under it is a dissolution comparison on a bench.
The record: vitalnutrients.co Pro-15 product page and its own footnote, verbatim, 2026-07-31
Finding 6 no-third-party-testing-or-certification-of-any-kind
The full product page was scanned for every certifier this category leans on. cGMP or GMP — 0 occurrences. NSF — 0. USP — 0. Informed Sport or Informed Choice — 0. Non-GMO Project — 0. Certificate of Analysis or COA — 0. The word "tested" — 0. The only third-party reference is a SuppCo TrustScore, which is a rating rather than an assay. The brand-level quality page offers "Rigorous Quality Assurance" with no registrar, no lab and no standard named.
The record: vitalnutrients.co Pro-15 product page, token scan, 2026-07-31
Finding 7 brand-quality-page-contradicts-itself-on-its-own-age
The Vital Nutrients quality page says "Vital Nutrients was founded 25 years ago" and, four paragraphs later, "Vital Nutrients was founded 30 years ago". Both sentences are live on the same page. Small, but it is on the page whose subject is rigour.
The record: vitalnutrients.co /pages/vital-difference, read 2026-07-31
Finding 8 more-strains-is-arithmetically-less-per-strain
Pro-15 divides 5 billion CFU across 15 organisms. The same brand's PRO-Men and PRO-Women put the same 5 billion into 6. Pro-15 spreads one dose 2.5 times thinner and sells the spreading as diversity.
The record: DSLD 306763 versus 328457 and 306768 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 9 pre-2020-nomenclature-throughout
Every Lactobacillus row on the panel uses the legacy genus. Zheng et al. 2020 split Lactobacillus into 25 genera. Legal, and it dates the panel.
The record: Panel image transcribed 2026-07-31; nomenclature reference PMID 32293557 — 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.
- SuppCo TrustScore® status
- The page's only third-party reference, described on-page as "a clear and unbiased way to measure the quality of our supplements from SuppCo, an independent third-party company... scores products on a 10-point scale based on their ability to deliver against 30+ key quality attributes". A TrustScore is a rating, not a test. Nothing was assayed and nobody counted the CFU. SuppCo's own methodology was not queried in this pass, which is why this is recorded as not checked rather than as a failed check — but a rating occupying the visual slot where a certification mark normally sits is the mildest form of the substitution this site exists to document.
- Free-from and non-GMO self-declaration on the label status
- The label reads "Free of dairy, gluten, soy, peanut, tree nut, egg, fish, shellfish, active yeast, preservatives, artificial flavors and colors, and added sugar, and is non-GMO." No certifier is named. "Non-GMO" here is not "Non-GMO Project Verified".
- Per-organism CFU for any of the fifteen
- One 120 mg, 5 billion CFU blend row covers all fifteen. At an even split that is roughly 333 million each at manufacture and roughly 100 million each at the guaranteed floor — and the split is not disclosed, so B. infantis could be 300 million or 300 thousand.
- Any published study of this product, this brand, or its delivery technology
- Six PubMed queries, six zeros, with the diagnostics recorded so the zero is reproducible rather than asserted. "Hyperbiotics" returns 0 with the phrase reported as not found. "Hyperbiotic" returns one record, PMID 3562075, a 1987 Russian physiology paper on water fractions in rat blood — unrelated. "BIO-tract" and "Biotract" both return 0 under three spellings. This does not prove no study exists; unpublished, unindexed or in-house work is possible, and BIO-tract is licensed from a company that does publish. It does mean "clinically studied formula" is unsupported by anything a reader can find.
- Any strain identity
- No ATCC, DSM, CNCM, NCIMB or CECT designator appears anywhere on this label, and the federal record agrees. Fifteen species cannot be matched to fifteen tested agents.
- Whether the "15X more probiotic survivability" figure translates to any outcome
- The brand's own footnote is honest — "BIO-tract® vs. instant release formulations under in vitro test conditions" — and it is a benchtop dissolution comparison. The sentence it supports claims "superior results at a lower CFU", which is a clinical assertion resting on in-vitro evidence.
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.
This is the cheapest product in its batch, and its marketing copy names a disease. It is also one of the eleven labels in this entire audit that print both potency endpoints — and the only one of them that designates no organism at all.
Take the good first, because it is real and this category almost never earns it. The panel prints both endpoints: “¥At the time of manufacture. Minimum of 1.5 Billion CFU at expiration.” Five billion going in, one and a half billion guaranteed coming out. Most brands publish one number and decline to say which end of shelf life it belongs to; this one publishes both and lets you compute the decay yourself. The decay is 70%. That figure is worth more than this product — it is a rare public data point on what a manufacturer actually expects to lose, and it is the reference number to hold against any brand that quotes only a manufacture figure.
The panel is also machine-legible at 2400×2400 and matches the federal record line for line. At $0.58 a day with no fake compare-at price, the honesty about what you get holds up well.
The honesty about why you should want it does not.
Fifteen organisms, zero designators — and the copy calls them “15 well-researched probiotic strains”. They are species. One 120 mg blend row covers all fifteen, so B. infantis here could be 300 million or 300 thousand. And more strains is arithmetically less: the same brand’s gendered SKUs put the same 5 billion into six organisms, so the unisex product spreads one dose 2.5 times thinner and sells the spreading as diversity.
Then the sentence. Verbatim from the page: “…this clinically studied formula… has been clinically shown to ease occasional symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease, including diarrhea, digestive discomfort, and absorption of key vitamins and minerals.” IBD is a named disease. The word “occasional” modifies symptoms; the disease is still named. And the same paragraph contains a correctly drafted claim — “occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas, and bloating” — which names symptoms without naming a disease. One paragraph, one compliant sentence and one that is not, which tells you the copy was never reviewed as a unit.
Behind “clinically shown” there is nothing findable. Six PubMed queries on the brand, the product and the BIO-tract delivery technology return six zeros, diagnostics recorded. And there is no third-party testing of any kind: a full token scan of the page returns zero for cGMP, NSF, USP, Informed Choice, Non-GMO Project, COA — and zero for the word tested. What occupies that slot instead is a SuppCo TrustScore, which is a rating. Nothing was assayed. Nobody counted the CFU.
Last, the men’s question, which the brand answers honestly and the catalogue answers differently. The page says Pro-15 is “a perfect foundational probiotic for men’s and women’s health” — unisex, stated plainly. Compare the gendered siblings and the pattern is exact: identical probiotic dose across all three SKUs, with a 250 mg curcumin blend bolted on for him and a 250 mg cranberry and D-mannose blend for her. The gender is a botanical. The probiotic underneath is the same product three times.