One product, one panel, one record.
Pendulum Metabolic Daily — label audit
Metabolic Daily delivers 300 million AFU a day. Pendulum's own clinically-tested Glucose Control, built on the identical five organisms, delivers 2 billion — a 6.67× shortfall. Pendulum badges the other product "Clinical dose" and footnotes this one "*Based on preclinical studies."
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 Torn down 2026-07-31, after the founding cohort of 27 was frozen. It sits outside every D27 denominator the site publishes. Pendulum Akkermansia and Pendulum Glucose Control are separate teardowns; Metabolic Daily is a third, distinct SKU.
- 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.
- What did not survive verification
- Part of this page was refuted or could not be reproduced The headline finding on this page — 300 million AFU against the 2 billion AFU of Pendulum's own "Clinical dose"-badged sibling on the identical five organisms — is built entirely from Pendulum's own two pages and stands as written. Three things attached to it did not clear verification and are not quotable. (1) Whether this product contains inulin is unknown: the trial formulation is described as containing it and this page does not disclose it, but no Supplement Facts panel exists and the carton was not read, so "Metabolic Daily omits the inulin" is not a statement this site makes. (2) The $564 compare-at anchor was seen only inside an embedded tracking payload, never in a rendered price display; no claim is made that any shopper is shown it. (3) The 300 million AFU figure may not be ranked against any CFU figure anywhere — the units differ and the page never defines its own.
The Label Verifiability Score for this product
No score and no rank
No Label Verifiability Score is published for this product, and none is estimated. A score must rest on at least 50% of the rubric by weight; this record answers 22%, so a number here would present an average of one or two components as a summary of five.
The product stays in the audit and stays on this site. It is listed, unranked, on the label audit, and it is absent from the ranking rather than placed at the bottom of it: an unanswered question is not a bad answer, and ranking it as though it were would be a number about our reach dressed up as a fact about the product.
| Component | Weight | What was counted, and where | Fraction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strain identity printed on the panel | 0.24 | The panel is not fully transcribed — 5 organism slots are on this record and they are the ones a cleared finding named. A share computed over them would describe our transcription, not the label. | Not answered |
| Per-organism amount printed | 0.20 | The panel is not fully transcribed — 5 organism slots are on this record and they are the ones a cleared finding named. A share computed over them would describe our transcription, not the label. | Not answered |
| 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 |
| Printed designators that lead to a human trial | 0.20 | The panel is not fully transcribed — 5 organism slots are on this record and they are the ones a cleared finding named. A share computed over them would describe our transcription, not the label. | Not answered |
| 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 |
This record answers 22% of the rubric by weight, below the 50% floor a published score requires. Scoring it would present an average of one or two components as a summary of five. Listed, unranked, and the components it did answer are shown above.
The ranking of the 154 products that can be scored is on the home page, with what the score measures and what it does not.
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 | 300 million AFU |
| What that count is measured against | No basis stated |
| Strain designators | None — species only |
| Organism slots transcribed here | 5 — partial; the panel is not fully transcribed |
| Marketed as | Unisex |
No basis of any kind is printed. The nearest thing to a potency statement anywhere on the page is the shelf-life FAQ: "The shelf life of Metabolic Daily is 2 years from the manufacturing date printed on the bottle. However, we are transitioning to putting 'best by' dates on our Metabolic Daily bottles." That is a shelf-life statement, not a potency guarantee.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clostridium butyricum | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Clostridium beijerinckii | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Bifidobacterium infantis (correct name: Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis) | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Anaerobutyricum hallii | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Akkermansia muciniphila | — 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 — pendulum-metabolic-daily-membership-pdp-2026-07-31https://pendulumlife.com/products/pendulum-metabolic-daily-probiotic-metabolism — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits. captured Live canonical handle, HTTP 200. Membership pricing, the "Active ingredients" accordion, all badges and all claim wording were read here. This page publishes no Supplement Facts panel, so the accordion is the only composition source that exists.
- Dated capture of the brand’s own page — pendulum-metabolic-daily-otp-2026-07-31https://pendulumlife.com/products/pendulum-metabolic-daily-otp — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits. captured One-time-purchase handle, HTTP 200. Source of the $69.00 one-time price used above — the price a first-time buyer sees, rather than the $49.00 membership price Forbes quotes.
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. That count was made against a panel this record has not fully transcribed, so treat it as provisional.
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
$2.30 a day at the dose the label itself instructs.
- Price
- $69.00 USD
- What that buys
- 30-capsule bottle (30 servings, 1 capsule daily), one-time purchase
- Price checked
- — the source we read it fromhttps://pendulumlife.com/products/pendulum-metabolic-daily-otp — 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 |
|---|---|---|
| "3rd-Party Tested" badge | Brand-asserted, unverified | 31 July 2026 |
| "Non-GMO" badge | Brand-asserted, unverified | 31 July 2026 |
| "Clinically Studied Strains" badge | Brand-asserted, unverified | 31 July 2026 |
| "Doctor Formulated" badge | Brand-asserted, unverified | 31 July 2026 |
"3rd-Party Tested" badge
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
No laboratory, certifier, certificate number or certificate of analysis is named anywhere on the page. There is no issuer register to query, so this can be neither confirmed nor refuted.
"Non-GMO" badge
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
A bare self-claim. "Non-GMO" is not the same claim as "Non-GMO Project Verified" — no third-party mark is asserted, so there is nothing to look up. Recorded for the file: nongmoproject.org's product finder returned HTTP 404 in this session (homepage 200), which is immaterial here because no Project mark is claimed.
"Clinically Studied Strains" badge
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
Not a certification. It sits roughly 400px from the page's own "*Based on preclinical studies" footnote. No strain designator appears anywhere on the page, so no strain named on this label can be matched to any study.
"Doctor Formulated" badge
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
Not a certification. No doctor is named anywhere on the page.
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 fifteen-percent-of-the-brands-own-clinical-dose
Metabolic Daily and Pendulum's Glucose Control contain the identical five organisms. Metabolic Daily is 300 million AFU at one capsule daily; Glucose Control is 2 billion AFU at two capsules daily. Metabolic Daily therefore delivers 15% of the daily dose of the formulation that was actually trialled — a 6.67× shortfall — and Pendulum documents the difference itself: it badges Glucose Control, not Metabolic Daily, "Clinical dose".
The record: Pendulum's own two product pages, read side by side 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://pendulumlife.com/products/pendulum-metabolic-daily-probiotic-metabolism — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
Finding 2 clinically-studied-strains-badge-beside-a-preclinical-footnote
The page carries a "Clinically Studied Strains" badge. Roughly 400px away, the metabolic claim "Helps metabolize sugars and carbs*" is footnoted "*Based on preclinical studies". Both are Pendulum's own words, on the same page.
The record: pendulumlife.com Metabolic Daily page, read 2026-07-31
Finding 3 potency-unit-is-afu-never-defined-basis-unstated
The dose is given as "300 million AFU". The string "CFU" appears 0 times on the entire product page, and AFU is not defined anywhere on it. No temporal basis is stated — not at manufacture, not at expiry, nowhere. Because the unit is AFU rather than CFU, this number cannot be compared against any CFU figure in the category, and a reader who compares it to one reaches a conclusion the evidence does not support.
The record: pendulumlife.com Metabolic Daily page, full-HTML string counts 2026-07-31
Finding 4 zero-strain-designators-while-calling-each-a-strain
Five organisms, no ATCC, DSM, CNCM, NCIMB, WB-STR or any other designator anywhere on the page, while the page's own copy calls each of the five a "strain". Five species are being presented as five strains.
The record: pendulumlife.com Metabolic Daily page; "WB-STR" returns 0 occurrences in the page HTML
Finding 5 proprietary-blend-with-no-per-organism-allocation
"Probiotic blend (300 million AFU)" covers all five organisms as one undivided figure. No per-organism dose is disclosed.
The record: pendulumlife.com "Active ingredients" accordion, read 2026-07-31
Finding 6 absent-from-dsld-confirmed-eight-ways
The most expensive product in its batch has no machine-readable label record in the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database. The absence was run eight ways — "Pendulum", "Pendulum Therapeutics", "Pendulum Life", "Pendulum Metabolic", "Metabolic Daily" filtered to the brand, "Akkermansia", "muciniphila" and "Anaerobutyricum" — with zero Pendulum records on every one. The "Akkermansia" query is the control that makes the finding safe to state: DSLD does index Akkermansia supplements, returning seven from other brands (333402, 338386, 332326, 323364, 333409, 333410, 273190). This is not a database gap in the ingredient class. It is Pendulum-specific.
The record: DSLD v9 API, eight search-filter queries, 2026-07-31 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 7 sole-supporting-rct-is-entirely-sponsor-employed
The one human RCT behind these five organisms is Perraudeau F et al., BMJ Open Diabetes Res Care 2020;8(1):e001319 (PMID 32675291, NCT03893422): n=76 with type 2 diabetes across three arms, so roughly 25 per arm, 12 weeks, twice-daily dosing, primary glucose total-AUC endpoint landing exactly on p=0.0500. The authors describe it themselves as a "proof-of-concept study" whose "limited sample size and intersubject variability justifies future studies". The conflict-of- interest statement reads, verbatim, "All authors are employees and stock/stock option shareholders of Pendulum Therapeutics, Inc." There is no independent replication.
The record: PMID 32675291, verified via NCBI E-utilities 2026-07-31
Finding 8 doctor-formulated-with-no-doctor-named
A "Doctor Formulated" badge with no doctor identified anywhere on the page.
The record: pendulumlife.com Metabolic Daily page, read 2026-07-31
Finding 9 third-party-tested-with-nothing-to-check
A "3rd-Party Tested" badge with no laboratory, certificate number or certificate of analysis named. Nothing is verifiable at any issuer because no issuer is identified.
The record: pendulumlife.com Metabolic Daily page, read 2026-07-31
Finding 10 no-supplement-facts-panel-published-anywhere
Pendulum publishes no Supplement Facts panel on either product handle. Composition is disclosed only as prose inside an "Active ingredients" accordion. A screen reader, a price-comparison tool or any automated checker cannot read this product's composition, and neither can a buyer who wants the panel before purchase.
The record: Both live product handles, fetched 2026-07-31
Finding 11 storage-instruction-contradicts-itself-on-the-same-page
The Usage block says "Refrigerate for optimal quality". The FAQ on the same page says "Store at room temperature. Refrigerate for optimal quality. Cold storage during transit is not necessary."
The record: pendulumlife.com Metabolic Daily page, both blocks read 2026-07-31
Finding 12 circulating-product-url-is-a-404
The URL that circulates for this product, https://pendulumlife.com/products/metabolic-daily, returns HTTP 404. The live canonical is /products/pendulum-metabolic-daily-probiotic-metabolism (membership pricing) with a second handle /products/pendulum-metabolic-daily-otp (one-time purchase).
The record: HTTP 404 verified on the .json endpoint, 2026-07-31
Finding 13 paid-placement-copy-exceeds-the-vendors-own-claims
Forbes Vetted's paid-placement copy asserts that Metabolic Daily's strains "target appetite regulation, mood and energy". Pendulum's own product page claims none of those three outcomes, and its own "*Based on preclinical studies" footnote would not support them if it did.
The record: forbes.com/sites/forbes-personal-shopper/article/best-probiotics/, read 2026-07-31 — open ithttps://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes-personal-shopper/article/best-probiotics/ — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits.
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.
- The full Supplement Facts panel
- Only 5 organism slots are transcribed here, and they are the ones a cleared finding named. The rest of the panel has not been read into this record, so no per-product percentage may be computed from it.
- "3rd-Party Tested" badge status
- No laboratory, certifier, certificate number or certificate of analysis is named anywhere on the page. There is no issuer register to query, so this can be neither confirmed nor refuted.
- "Non-GMO" badge status
- A bare self-claim. "Non-GMO" is not the same claim as "Non-GMO Project Verified" — no third-party mark is asserted, so there is nothing to look up. Recorded for the file: nongmoproject.org's product finder returned HTTP 404 in this session (homepage 200), which is immaterial here because no Project mark is claimed.
- "Clinically Studied Strains" badge status
- Not a certification. It sits roughly 400px from the page's own "*Based on preclinical studies" footnote. No strain designator appears anywhere on the page, so no strain named on this label can be matched to any study.
- "Doctor Formulated" badge status
- Not a certification. No doctor is named anywhere on the page.
- Whether Metabolic Daily contains inulin
- This matters because the trial formulation WBF-011 is described in its own peer-reviewed abstract as containing inulin alongside the five organisms. Pendulum's "Active ingredients" accordion lists the five organisms and does not mention inulin, but the brand publishes no full Supplement Facts panel and the physical carton was not retrieved. The absence of inulin from a marketing accordion is not evidence of its absence from the capsule. This site does not claim Metabolic Daily omits it.
- The full Supplement Facts panel
- Pendulum publishes no Supplement Facts panel anywhere on either product handle — only a prose "Active ingredients" accordion. There is nothing to transcribe.
- The per-organism allocation of the 300 million AFU
- A single undivided blend figure covers all five organisms. Nothing on the page permits a buyer to find out how much of any one organism they are taking.
- Whether any of the four badges is backed
- "3rd-Party Tested", "Non-GMO", "Clinically Studied Strains" and "Doctor Formulated" name no certifier, no laboratory, no certificate and no doctor. Where no issuer is named there is no register to check, and the honest status is brand-asserted and unverified — never "verified", and never "does not hold it".
- Whether the $564 compare-at anchor is ever shown to a shopper
- The Klaviyo "Viewed Product" payload embedded in the page transmits Price "$49.00" alongside CompareAtPrice "$564.00" — the compare-at maximum across all variants, which is the 6-month bundle, not a comparator for a $49 monthly item. This was observed in the tracking payload only. No rendered on-page price display using that anchor was observed, and this site makes no claim that shoppers are shown it.
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 sells two products built on the same five organisms. It tells you which one was tested.
Glucose Control carries a “Clinical dose” badge, two capsules daily, 2 billion AFU, and a footnote pointing at a real peer-reviewed trial. Metabolic Daily carries one capsule daily, 300 million AFU, and a footnote reading *“Based on preclinical studies.” Same five organisms. 15% of the daily dose. A 6.67× shortfall, documented by the vendor, on the vendor’s own two pages.
That is the whole finding, and nothing in it has to be inferred. The awkward part is what sits next to it: a “Clinically Studied Strains” badge, roughly 400px from the preclinical footnote, on a page that prints no strain designator for any of the five organisms. Five species are called five strains, and none of them can be matched to any trial, because the label names none of them.
The trial itself deserves to be read carefully rather than dismissed. Perraudeau et al. (2020) is a genuine randomised, placebo-controlled study — n=76 with type 2 diabetes, split three ways, so roughly 25 per arm, with a primary endpoint that landed exactly on p = 0.0500. The authors call it a proof-of-concept study and ask for confirmatory work. Every author is an employee and shareholder of Pendulum Therapeutics. It has not been independently replicated, and it tested a different product at twice the dosing frequency in a diabetic population.
Two smaller things worth knowing before you weigh the price. The potency figure is denominated in AFU, a unit the page never defines and never compares to anything — so the number cannot be ranked against the CFU claims on every competing bottle, and this page will not do it. And Pendulum publishes no Supplement Facts panel at all, on either handle. Composition lives in a prose accordion. At $2.30 a day at the one-time price, this is the most expensive product in its batch, and it is the one you can read the least of.
Credit where it is earned, because it is unusual here. Pendulum writes “Based on preclinical studies” down voluntarily — a limitation almost nobody in this category concedes. It sets a 90-day expectation instead of promising fast results, offers a plain 30-day money-back guarantee, and its live claims stay inside structure/function grammar throughout. Forbes labelled the placement “Paid Placement” and reported the dose, price and organisms accurately; the disclosure worked as it should. The problem there is downstream, in placement copy that promises appetite regulation, mood and energy — three things Pendulum’s own page never claims.