One product, one panel, one record.
Pendulum Glucose Control — label audit
Every efficacy number Pendulum advertises was generated at three times the dose printed on the bottle. The trial instructed "three capsules two times a day"; the retail label says "Take 2 capsules daily". Replicating the trial regimen costs $297 to $417 a month.
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
- D₂₇ founding teardown One of the 27 products taken apart at label level. That cohort is frozen and dated, so the audit’s published percentages cannot silently move.
- 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
30.9 out of 100
Rank 121 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 | 4 of 5 organism slots carry a printed strain designator. | 4 / 5 = 0.8000 | 0.1920 |
| Per-organism amount printed | 0.20 | 0 of 5 organism slots have an amount of its own; the rest are inside a blend total. | 0 / 5 = 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 5 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 / 5 = 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 |
0.265333 — the last column added up — divided by 0.86, the weight this record could answer, is 0.3085. Multiplied by 100 and rounded to one decimal, that is the 30.9 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 | 2 billion AFU per dose |
| What that count is measured against | No basis stated |
| Strain designators | Some organisms coded |
| Organism slots transcribed here | 5 — the full panel |
| Marketed as | Unisex |
No basis is printed. The FAQ says: "Glucose Control is good for up to 2 years from the manufacturing date when refrigerated and sealed. We are transitioning to putting 'best by' dates on our Glucose Control bottles." A two-year shelf life is not a potency guarantee, and the transition admission means some bottles in market carry no date 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clostridium butyricum | WB-STR-0006 | — not stated separately | No records | — |
| Clostridium beijerinckii | WB-STR-0005 | — not stated separately | No records | — |
| Anaerobutyricum hallii | WB-STR-0008 | — not stated separately | No records | — |
| Akkermansia muciniphila | WB-STR-0001 | — not stated separately | No records | "WB-STR-0001" |
| Bifidobacterium infantis (correct name: Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis) | — 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 — GlucoseControl_Carousel_04_668x668_2x-minhttps://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0175/3104/3894/files/GlucoseControl_Carousel_04_668x668_2x-min_eedaf504-0a9a-4ef2-ab72-97238158115a.jpg — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits. captured The brand's own label image, read directly. Note the panel type: this product carries a Nutrition Facts panel, not a Supplement Facts panel — it is labelled as a food. There is no government label record for it.
- Dated capture of the brand’s own page — pendulum-glucose-control-pdp-2026-07-30https://pendulumlife.com/products/pendulum-glucose-control-probiotic-blood-sugar — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits. captured Live page and Shopify JSON: SKU PGC-01-MEM-01 at $99.00, PGC-01-OTP-01 at $139.00, the three-month option at $267.00, the A1c and 32.5% claims, and the shelf-life FAQ.
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
$3.30 a day at the dose the label itself instructs.
- Price
- $99.00 USD
- What that buys
- 60-capsule bottle (30 servings, 2 capsules per serving), membership price
- Price checked
- — the source we read it fromhttps://pendulumlife.com/products/pendulum-glucose-control-probiotic-blood-sugar — 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Non-GMO Project Verified | Brand-asserted, unverified | 30 July 2026 |
Non-GMO Project Verified
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
The butterfly mark is printed on the label. The certifier returned HTTP 403, so the listing could not be confirmed at the issuer.
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 trial-dose-is-three-times-the-label-dose
From the trial's methods, verbatim: "All study participants were instructed to swallow three capsules two times a day within 30 min of morning and evening meals", and "Each subject received 12 identical product bottles containing 45 size 0 capsules (1 week supply+3 extra capsules)". Forty-five capsules as a week's supply is about six a day, which the three-twice-daily instruction confirms. The retail label says "Take 2 capsules daily". Every efficacy number Pendulum advertises was generated at three times the dose on the bottle, and nothing on the product page or the label discloses it. Replicating the trial regimen means three bottles a month: $297 at the membership price, $417 one-time — $9.90 to $13.90 a day.
The record: PMC7368581 · NCT03893422 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 2 a1c-headline-was-not-statistically-significant
"Reduces A1C by 0.6*" appears in the Details accordion. In the paper, A1c is a secondary outcome and the figure is −0.6 against placebo at p=0.0540 — which does not meet the study's own 5% threshold. The paper also reports the within-group A1c reduction as 0.2.
The record: PMC7368581 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 3 thirty-two-point-five-percent-is-a-within-group-figure
"Reduces post-meal glucose spikes by 32.5%*". The paper's sentence: "Incremental glucose AUC 0-180 min was also lower in WBF-011 group (−28.56 mg/dL/180 min; p=0.0066); corresponding to a median within-group decrease of 32.5% for WBF-011 and a median within-group increase of 26.4% for placebo." Stripping "within-group" converts an uncontrolled before-and-after number into what reads as a treatment effect.
The record: PMC7368581 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 4 one-trial-reported-twice-plus-a-case-report
The pivotal trial randomised 76 across three arms; the retail formula's arm was n=23 intent-to-treat and n=21 per protocol. Its primary endpoint landed at p=0.0500, exactly at the threshold. All 17 authors are company employees and, per the conflict statement, employees and stock or stock-option shareholders. The authors' own words are "proof-of-concept study" and "the limited sample size and intersubject variability justifies future studies designed to confirm and expand on these observations". The companion metabolomics paper is a secondary analysis of the same subjects, not a second trial.
The record: PMC7368581 · PMID 34996347 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 5 proprietary-blend
Two billion AFU across five organisms with no per-strain amounts. The word "proprietary" is on the label and not in the website copy.
The record: Brand label image, read directly 2026-07-30
Finding 6 named-disease-claim-under-a-medical-food-posture
Unlike every other product in this research, Glucose Control does not present as a structure/function supplement. It carries a Nutrition Facts panel rather than a Supplement Facts panel, instructs "Use only under physician supervision as part of a diabetes management plan", names type 2 diabetes on the label and throughout the copy, and uses the phrase "nutritional management", which is the statutory language for a medical food. That is a coherent regulatory posture and not improper on its face. Two consequences the marketing does not surface: the FDA structure/function disclaimer that appears on every other product here does not apply, so a consumer accustomed to reading "not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease" gets no such signal — and the product is being sold at $99 to $139 a month to people with a diagnosed disease, on one n=23 proof-of-concept arm, at one third of the dose that generated its numbers.
The record: Brand label image and pendulumlife.com, verified 2026-07-30
Finding 7 afu-basis-unstated-and-some-bottles-undated
A two-year shelf life is published with no statement of what the 2 billion AFU refers to at any point in that window, and the brand's own FAQ says it is still transitioning to printing best-by dates — meaning some bottles in market carry no date at all. There is also a practical trap: a 60-capsule bottle is a 30-day supply, but the open-bottle limit is two months, and a buyer following the trial regimen opens three bottles a month.
The record: pendulumlife.com FAQ, verified live 2026-07-30
Finding 8 one-time-purchase-penalty
$139.00 one-time against $99.00 on membership — a 40.4% premium for declining a recurring order.
The record: Shopify JSON for PGC-01-MEM-01 and PGC-01-OTP-01, verified 2026-07-30
Finding 9 bifidobacterium-infantis-undesignated
Four of the five organisms carry a WB-STR- code. B. infantis carries none, on either the label or the website.
The record: Brand label image, read directly 2026-07-30
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
- The butterfly mark is printed on the label. The certifier returned HTTP 403, so the listing could not be confirmed at the issuer.
- Whether two retail capsules deliver the trial's daily cell load
- The per-capsule cell count used in the trial could not be retrieved, so it cannot be stated that six trial capsules equal six billion AFU. It is possible Pendulum reformulated to a more concentrated capsule so that two retail capsules match the trial's daily load. Pendulum does not say so anywhere that could be found, and the label's "2 billion AFU per dose" against a six-capsule trial regimen is at minimum unreconciled. Recorded as unreconciled by the brand rather than asserted as a threefold shortfall in delivered cells.
- Any per-strain AFU amount
- None. The label calls it a proprietary blend — a word that appears on the label and not in the website copy. A reader knows the total is 2 billion AFU across five organisms and cannot know whether that is 400 million each or 1.99 billion of one and a sprinkle of four others. That matters more than usual here, because the trial tested a specific formulation and nothing on the label lets a buyer confirm the retail product matches its strain ratios.
- The Non-GMO Project listing
- The certifier returned HTTP 403.
- Any government label record
- Pendulum has none; a DSLD brand query returns zero.
- Whether a given bottle carries a date at all
- The brand states it is still transitioning to printing best-by dates.
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.
Pendulum has something almost nobody else in this research has: a real, registered, multicentre, double-blind, placebo-controlled randomised trial of its own formulation. That should be said first, and it should not be flattened. The problem is not whether the trial happened. It is how it is described.
Start with the dose. From the trial’s methods, verbatim:
“All study participants were instructed to swallow three capsules two times a day within 30 min of morning and evening meals.” “Each subject received 12 identical product bottles containing 45 size 0 capsules (1 week supply+3 extra capsules).”
Forty-five capsules as a week’s supply is about six a day. The retail label says “Take 2 capsules daily.” Every efficacy figure Pendulum advertises was produced at three times the dose printed on the bottle, and nothing on the product page or the label mentions it. Following the trial regimen means three bottles a month — $297 on membership, $417 one-time, or $9.90 to $13.90 a day.
(The honest caveat: the per-capsule cell count used in the trial could not be retrieved, so it cannot be stated flatly that the retail product delivers a third of the trial’s cells. Pendulum may have reformulated to a more concentrated capsule. If it has, it does not say so anywhere findable, and “2 billion AFU per dose” against a six-capsule regimen is at minimum unreconciled.)
Then the two headline numbers.
“Reduces A1C by 0.6”* — in the paper, A1c is a secondary outcome and the figure is −0.6 against placebo at p=0.0540, which does not meet the study’s own 5% threshold. The within-group reduction was 0.2.
“Reduces post-meal glucose spikes by 32.5%”* — the paper’s own sentence describes 32.5% as a median within-group decrease, alongside a median within-group increase of 26.4% in placebo. Dropping “within-group” turns an uncontrolled before-and-after figure into what reads as a treatment effect.
And the trial itself: 76 randomised across three arms, so the retail formula’s arm was n=23 (n=21 per protocol), the primary endpoint landed at exactly p=0.0500, and all seventeen authors are company employees and shareholders. The authors call it a “proof-of-concept study”.
One structural point that changes how this product should be read. Glucose Control does not present as a supplement. It carries a Nutrition Facts panel, not a Supplement Facts panel. It instructs physician supervision. It names type 2 diabetes on the label. It uses “nutritional management”, which is the statutory language for a medical food. That is a coherent regulatory posture, and not improper on its face — but it means the familiar FDA disclaimer does not appear, so a consumer used to reading “not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease” gets no such signal, and the product reads as more medically authorised than a supplement because it is positioned to.
For a men’s-probiotic comparison the operative point is simpler and safer: this is not a general-wellness probiotic and should not be listed as one. The pivotal trial was majority women, enrolled people with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes on metformin, and says nothing about a healthy man buying a daily probiotic.