One product, one panel, one record.
Ortho Molecular Products Ortho Biotic Capsules (SKU 527030 / 527060) — label audit
Ortho Molecular names its strains, which makes its substantiation checkable for the first time — and checked, the product sheet's own reference list cites different strains than the capsule contains, with a front-of-sheet claim about human secretory IgA resting on a gnotobiotic mouse study.
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.
- What did not survive verification
- Part of this page was refuted or could not be reproduced The brand's current product-information sheet and the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database disagree about what is in this product, and the disagreement could not be resolved. DSLD 174445 and 174452 — both flagged on-market, both carrying this product's own SKU numbers — transcribe the Lactobacillus rhamnosus slot as Lr-32 and Saccharomyces boulardii as 2 billion CFU with no mg figure. The brand's current sheet (LT-PDN-107-E, panel V5) prints GG and 200 mg / 3 billion CFU. The other five organisms are identical across both sources. This page publishes the current sheet's values because that is what the brand publishes today, but it must not be read as proof of composition: no reformulation claim is made or implied here, because none can be. What is quotable is only that the brand's own current sheet and the federal label database disagree about which L. rhamnosus strain this product contains and how much S. boulardii is in it. Resolving that needs a physical bottle or a statement from the brand, and neither was obtained. Separately, no brand price exists to verify — see the price note.
The Label Verifiability Score for this product
72.8 out of 100
Rank 49 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 | 6 of 7 organism slots carry a printed strain designator. | 6 / 7 = 0.8571 | 0.205714 |
| Per-organism amount printed | 0.20 | 1 of 7 organism slots have an amount of its own; the rest are inside a blend total. | 1 / 7 = 0.1429 | 0.028571 |
| 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 | 6 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. | 6 / 7 = 0.8571 | 0.171429 |
| Certification confirmed at the issuer’s own register | 0.14 | No certifier register has been queried for this product. Not checked is not the same as holds nothing. | Not answered | — excluded from the divisor, not counted as nought |
0.625714 — the last column added up — divided by 0.86, the weight this record could answer, is 0.7276. Multiplied by 100 and rounded to one decimal, that is the 72.8 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 Blend 133 mg (20 Billion CFU), plus Saccharomyces boulardii 200 mg (3 Billion CFU) — 23 billion total |
| What that count is measured against | Through expiry |
| Strain designators | Some organisms coded |
| Organism slots transcribed here | 7 — the full panel |
| Marketed as | Unisex |
"Guaranteed potency at expiration. No refrigeration required." Printed on the product page and the brand's product-information sheet. This is an unambiguous at-expiry guarantee and it is the honest form of the claim — and it is the only one of this brand's three audited SKUs that makes it.
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.
Some organisms carry a printed strain designator and some are named by species only.
| Organism as printed | Designator as printed | Quantity as printed | What the designator resolves to | The query we ran |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lactobacillus acidophilus | La-14 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | PubMed E-utilities, exact designator with randomized controlled trial[pt] |
| Lactobacillus paracasei | Lpc-37 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | PubMed E-utilities, exact designator with randomized controlled trial[pt] |
| Bifidobacterium lactis | Bl-04 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | PubMed E-utilities, exact designator with randomized controlled trial[pt] |
| Bifidobacterium bifidum | Bb-06 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | PubMed E-utilities, exact designator with randomized controlled trial[pt] |
| Lactobacillus plantarum | Lp-115 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | PubMed E-utilities, exact designator with randomized controlled trial[pt] |
| Lactobacillus rhamnosus | GG | — not stated separately | Human RCT | PubMed E-utilities, exact designator with randomized controlled trial[pt] |
| Saccharomyces boulardii | — none printed | 200 mg (3 Billion CFU) | 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.
- NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record — DSLD 174445 (opens in a new tab) captured On-market. Product #527030, 30 ct, UPC 6 15033 00527 6. This record transcribes L. rhamnosus as Lr-32 and S. boulardii as 2 billion CFU with no mg figure — both differ from the brand's current sheet.
- NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record — DSLD 174452 (opens in a new tab) captured On-market. Product #527060, 60 ct, UPC 6 15033 01527 5. Same composition as 174445. A third record, 72142 (2017), is flagged off-market.
- Dated capture of the brand’s own page — ompi-orthobioticcapsules-pdn-a4-LT-PDN-107-E-2026-07-31https://www.orthomolecularproducts.com/product/ortho-biotic-capsules — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits. captured The Supplement Facts panel is not on the product page — the panel tab is behind a practitioner login. The panel above was transcribed from the brand's own product-information sheet, ompi-orthobioticcapsules_pdn-a4.pdf, doc code LT-PDN-107-E, panel version V5, linked from the PDP and fetched directly. The PDP itself returned HTTP 200. This sheet is also the source of the numbered reference list documented in the findings.
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, 6 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
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.
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.
Every finding on this page, with the record behind it
Finding 1 reference-list-cites-different-strains-than-the-product-contains
Mapping the product sheet's own numbered references to the strains actually in the capsule: the B. lactis immune claim (refs 6, 7) cites B. lactis NCC2818 while the product contains Bl-04; the L. plantarum claim (ref 9) cites L. plantarum Biocenol™ LP96 in gnotobiotic pigs while the product contains Lp-115; the L. rhamnosus "1,700 genes" claim (ref 10) cites L. rhamnosus Lcr35 in human dendritic cells in vitro while the product contains GG; the L. paracasei claim (ref 3) cites an unnamed L. paracasei strain. The L. acidophilus acid- and bile-tolerance citation (ref 2) is the correct strain but is a supplier marketing document — "Danisco. L. acidophilus La-14 probiotic identity card" — not a study. Ref 1, a general mineral-absorption claim, is Lipski E, "Digestive Wellness", 1996, a popular-press book.
The record: Brand PDF ompi-orthobioticcapsules_pdn-a4.pdf, doc LT-PDN-107-E, reference list, read 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.orthomolecularproducts.com/product/ortho-biotic-capsules — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 2 front-of-sheet-siga-claim-substantiated-by-a-mouse-study
The clinical-application bullet "Increases Secretory IgA for Enhanced Gut Immunity" is printed on the front of the product sheet. Its supporting citation (ref 11) is a gnotobiotic mouse study.
The record: Brand PDF LT-PDN-107-E, front page bullet and ref 11, read 2026-07-31
Finding 3 s-boulardii-undesignated-while-copy-calls-it-extensively-researched
The one organism with no strain identity is the one the product page writes a paragraph about. The S. boulardii clinical literature runs on CNCM I-745; this label does not claim to contain it.
The record: Brand PDF LT-PDN-107-E Supplement Facts panel versus PDP body copy, 2026-07-31
Finding 4 proprietary-blend-hides-six-organism-doses
20 billion CFU across six organisms in a 133 mg blend, with no allocation printed.
The record: Brand PDF LT-PDN-107-E, panel V5
Finding 5 seven-proven-probiotic-strains-includes-one-with-no-strain-identity
The marketing phrase is "seven proven probiotic strains". One of the seven — S. boulardii — has no strain designator at all, so "proven" cannot attach to it.
The record: orthomolecularproducts.com product page copy, 2026-07-31
Finding 6 vitasecure-and-vcaps-sit-where-a-reader-looks-for-certification
The label's Seals/Symbols entries are "VitaSecure" and "Vcaps". VitaSecure is Ortho Molecular's own product-authentication and anti-diversion programme — a brand seal. Vcaps is a capsule supplier brand (Lonza). Neither says anything about potency, purity or contents, and a reader scanning for a certification mark meets them first. No third-party certification is claimed anywhere on this product.
The record: DSLD 174445 Seals/Symbols field, 2026-07-31 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 7 free-from-claims-name-no-certifying-body
"Formulated to be free of allergens derived from: gluten, corn, artificial colors or flavors" and "Dairy free" are self-declared, with no certifier named.
The record: DSLD 174445 label transcription, 2026-07-31
Finding 8 price-gated-behind-a-practitioner-login
A consumer cannot compare cost per day without going through a third-party reseller, and the two resellers found disagree by a factor of 1.7.
The record: orthomolecularproducts.com product page, login wall, 2026-07-31
Finding 9 because-efficacy-matters-sits-above-the-citation-set
The brand's tagline is "Because Efficacy Matters". It appears directly above the reference list documented in the first flag on this page.
The record: Brand PDF LT-PDN-107-E, read 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.
- Third-party certification
- No certifier register has been queried for this product. An empty certification list on this page means not checked — it does not mean the product holds nothing.
- A US retail price, and therefore the cost per day
- Ortho Molecular does not publish a price. The product page requires a practitioner login, so no brand MSRP is retrievable and no authoritative price for this SKU can be published. Two third-party resellers were found and they do not agree: Oakway Naturals lists $39.40 for a pack whose listing confirms the capsule count ("Ortho Biotic® Capsules - 30 Capsules (Formula: 527030)"), which at the label's one-capsule serving works out to $1.31 per day on a reseller basis; Purely Integrative lists $66.60 for a pack whose capsule count could not be confirmed. A reseller price is not a brand MSRP, and the teardown's own instruction was not to publish a single authoritative price for this SKU. No cost per day is published here for that reason.
- A men’s-versus-women’s label diff
- The same brand’s women’s SKU has not been compared against this panel.
- A brand MSRP, and therefore an authoritative cost per day
- Ortho Molecular gates price behind a practitioner login. Two resellers disagree and only one confirms its capsule count. See the price note.
- Which label is currently shipping
- The brand's current product-information sheet (LT-PDN-107-E, panel V5) and the NIH label database disagree about this product's composition. Both DSLD records remain flagged on-market. Without a physical bottle or a statement from the brand, the disagreement can be proved but not resolved.
- How the 20 billion CFU is split across the six bacteria
- Not disclosed. The six share one proprietary-blend figure. Credit where it is due — S. boulardii sits outside the blend and is separately quantified at 200 mg and 3 billion CFU — but the six bacteria are a single number.
- Whether any contained strain is present at a studied dose
- The PubMed figures above are record counts, not appraisals. No trial was read. With no per-strain CFU for six of the seven organisms, a dose comparison is structurally impossible from this label.
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 practitioner channel, and it does the one thing the consumer shelf mostly refuses to do: it names the strains. Six of the seven organisms here carry a real designator, and one of them — L. rhamnosus GG — is among the most-studied probiotic strains in existence.
Naming the strain is what makes a claim falsifiable. So check it. Ortho Molecular publishes a numbered reference list on a free public product sheet, which is more than most of this category offers, and mapping those references onto the capsule’s actual contents produces this: the B. lactis immune claim cites NCC2818 while the product contains Bl-04. The L. plantarum claim cites Biocenol™ LP96, in gnotobiotic pigs, while the product contains Lp-115. The L. rhamnosus “1,700 genes” claim cites Lcr35, in human dendritic cells in vitro, while the product contains GG. The L. acidophilus citation is the right strain but is a supplier marketing sheet, not a study. And a general claim about mineral absorption is referenced to a 1996 trade paperback.
The sharpest version is on the front of the sheet: the clinical-application bullet “Increases Secretory IgA for Enhanced Gut Immunity” is supported by a gnotobiotic mouse study. This is a cleaner failure than the consumer tier’s, and a worse one — a consumer brand can hide behind “we only claimed a species.” This brand named the strain and then cited a different one.
The seventh organism is the tell. Saccharomyces boulardii is the only ingredient with its own printed quantity — 200 mg, 3 billion CFU, outside the proprietary blend — and the only one with no strain identity at all. The product page calls S. boulardii “an extensively researched microorganism”. That research belongs to CNCM I-745, which this label does not claim to contain.
Now the credit, and it is real. “Guaranteed potency at expiration. No refrigeration required.” That is the honest form of a CFU claim, and it is the single most consumer-protective disclosure available in this category. It is also worth knowing that the same brand’s Ortho Biotic 100 and Ortho Spore IG sheets do not carry it. Same brand, same template, same PDF format — one product makes the promise and two do not.