One product, one panel, one record.
Vital Planet Vital Flora Men 55+ Daily Probiotic, Shelf Stable (30 ct) — label audit
The Supplement Facts panel for this product is published at 500x500 pixels and that is the maximum available anywhere — the brand's CDN, Amazon's CDN, and every larger size variant returns HTTP 400. The strain designators are about four pixels tall. A buyer using the brand's own website cannot read what they are buying.
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
41.6 out of 100
Rank 101 of the 154 products in this audit the rubric can score. This rank is shared with 1 other product — 2 products sit on 41.6 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 | 18 of 18 organism slots carry a printed strain designator. | 18 / 18 = 1.0000 | 0.2400 |
| Per-organism amount printed | 0.20 | 0 of 18 organism slots have an amount of its own; the rest are inside a blend total. | 0 / 18 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| What the CFU count is measured against | 0.22 | Potency basis "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 | 4 of 18 checked organism slots resolve to at least one human randomised trial under the designator exactly as printed. This counts whether the identity leads to a trial, never what the trial found. | 4 / 18 = 0.2222 | 0.044444 |
| 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 |
0.357778 — the last column added up — divided by 0.86, the weight this record could answer, is 0.4160. Multiplied by 100 and rounded to one decimal, that is the 41.6 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 | 60 Billion CFU (35 billion Bifido, 25 billion Lacto) |
| What that count is measured against | No basis stated |
| Strain designators | All organisms coded |
| Organism slots transcribed here | 18 — the full panel |
| Marketed as | Marketed to men |
None. The panel's only footnote is "Daily Value (DV) not established". No potency basis appears in the DSLD statement set, the page HTML, or the brand's own site search.
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.
Every organism on the panel carries a printed strain designator. Whether those designators lead anywhere is a separate question, answered below.
| Organism as printed | Designator as printed | Quantity as printed | What the designator resolves to | The query we ran |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bifidobacterium lactis | VPBA-4, Bl-07, B-420, HN019, VP-110, VP-111 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Bifidobacterium bifidum | VPBB-6, VP-112, VP-113 | — not stated separately | Untraceable house code | — |
| Bifidobacterium infantis | VPBI-6, VP-117, VP-118 | — not stated separately | Untraceable house code | — |
| Bifidobacterium longum | VPBL-5, VP-114, VP-115 | — not stated separately | Untraceable house code | — |
| Bifidobacterium breve | VP-7, VP-116 | — not stated separately | Untraceable house code | — |
| Lactobacillus plantarum | VPLP-5, VP-98, VP-99, VP-47, VP-36 | — not stated separately | Untraceable house code | — |
| Lactobacillus rhamnosus | GG, VP-6, HN001, VP-101, VP-34, VP-11 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lactobacillus acidophilus | VPLA-4, NCFM, VP-96, VP-35, VP-97 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lactobacillus casei | VPLC-1, VP-103, VP-9, VP-16 | — not stated separately | Untraceable house code | — |
| Lactobacillus paracasei | Lpc-37, VP-100, VP-33 | — not stated separately | Human RCT | — |
| Lactobacillus gasseri | VP-20, VP-40, VP-107 | — not stated separately | Untraceable house code | — |
| Lactobacillus reuteri | VPLR-1, VP-24, VP-108 | — not stated separately | Untraceable house code | — |
| Lactobacillus salivarius | VP-4, VP-104, VP-18 | — not stated separately | Untraceable house code | — |
| Lactobacillus bulgaricus | VPLB-7, VP-23, VP-109 | — not stated separately | Untraceable house code | — |
| Lactobacillus brevis | VPLB-5, VP-102 | — not stated separately | Untraceable house code | — |
| Lactobacillus fermentum | VP-48, VP-106 | — not stated separately | Untraceable house code | — |
| Lactobacillus delbrueckii | VP-10, VP-31 | — not stated separately | Untraceable house code | — |
| Lactobacillus helveticus | VP-105, VP-44 | — not stated separately | Untraceable house code | — |
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 — 51uJkeq6klL.jpghttps://www.vitalplanet.com/products/vital-flora-probiotic-men-55-shelf-stable-30ct — Address given, not linked: this site does not link out to the products it audits. captured The brand's own Supplement Facts image, 500x500 — the maximum that exists. Transcribed by cropping and upscaling. Count reconciliation, 17 Bifido plus 43 Lacto equals 60, matching the brand's claim. Bifidobacterium is listed first on this panel where the Men's Daily lists Lacto first, matching the Bifido-forward positioning.
- NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record — DSLD 320718 (opens in a new tab) captured On-market, 30 ct. The 60 ct record is 322845. Used for statements and the basis comparison, not as ground truth for the panel.
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, 7 organism slots carry a strain with a human RCT under the exact designator printed on the label.
A word on what a designator has to clear before it counts here. The organism must be named with the exact strain code that appears in the trial, the trial must be in humans, and the code must return that trial when a reader searches it. A species name does not qualify: the trials in this field are of strains, and a species contains thousands of them.
What it costs per day
$1.57 a day at the dose the label itself instructs.
- Price
- $46.99 USD
- What that buys
- 30-capsule bottle (30 servings, 1 capsule daily). 60 ct is $79.99, $1.33/day.
- Price checked
- — the source we read it fromhttps://www.vitalplanet.com/products/vital-flora-probiotic-men-55-shelf-stable-30ct — 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 |
|---|---|---|
| "cGMP Certified, Third-Party Tested" (schema.org Certification field) | Not checked | 31 July 2026 |
"cGMP Certified, Third-Party Tested" (schema.org Certification field)
We have not queried this register for this product. It does not mean the product holds nothing.
No certifying body is named anywhere, so there is no register to check — an unfalsifiable claim rather than an unreachable one. cGMP is a legal baseline under 21 CFR Part 111, not a certification, and the label's wording is "Assembled in a facility in the USA that is GMP". "Third-Party Tested" names no lab, no scope, no certificate and no COA. This page's schema.org additionalProperty block is byte-identical to the Men's Daily SKU's.
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 Vital Flora Women 55+ (DSLD 292774, 2023 generation). Diffed .
What the two panels differ by
- The women's 55+ label states the CFU basis — "60 Billion CFU (Formulated to maintain potency until expiration date under recommended storage Conditions)" on both subtotals. This men's 55+ label states none, as does every other Vital Planet men's record in DSLD. DSLD 292774 versus DSLD 320718 and 322845
- The ratio inverts. The men's 55+ is Bifido-forward at 25 B Lacto : 35 B Bifido; the women's 55+ is Lacto-forward at 45 B : 15 B. DSLD 320718 versus DSLD 292774
- Blend mass 269.4 mg on the men's versus 232 mg on the women's. Brand label image versus DSLD 292774
What is identical across the pair
- 60 billion CFU total in both
- The same brand-wide "diversity" framing and the same certification claims
Every finding on this page, with the record behind it
Finding 1 panel-published-at-500x500-only
The sibling Men's Daily panel is published at 1500x1500. This one maxes out at 500x500 everywhere it exists, making the strain designators roughly four pixels tall. So for this SKU the Supplement Facts are neither machine-readable (JPEG only) nor reliably human-readable. "The label is on the website" and "the label is readable" are different claims.
The record: cdn.shopify.com 51uJkeq6klL.jpg and m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51uJkeq6klL.jpg, both 500x500; larger variants HTTP 400
Finding 2 cfu-basis-unstated-while-the-womens-line-states-it
Sixty billion CFU with no time anchor, on a brand whose women's labels in the same database promise potency until the expiration date. Across every men's Vital Flora label in DSLD — 2023, 2024 and 2025 — the CFU figure carries no time basis.
The record: DSLD 320718, 322845, 320717, 320721, 320722, 292777 versus DSLD 292774, 292775 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 3 same-sixty-organisms-and-same-price-as-the-mens-daily-sku
Identical 60 strains, identical designators, identical order, identical $46.99. The differences are the Lacto:Bifido split (50:10 versus 25:35), the prebiotic blend (7 organic sources each, different ones), and blend mass. This is not a different formula — it is the same culture bank re-proportioned.
The record: Panel images 815RqNpRayL.jpg and 51uJkeq6klL.jpg, transcribed strain-by-strain 2026-07-31
Finding 4 clinically-studied-applied-to-all-sixty-strains
"60 Diverse, clinically studied probiotic strains — Tailored for men 55 and older." Seven of the 60 have clinical literature; 53 are house codes returning zero under both spellings.
The record: PubMed: house-code queries with and without hyphens, each requiring co-occurrence with Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium or probiotic → 0
Finding 5 replenish-what-naturally-declines-with-age
The sentence implies a corrective, restorative physiological action and is uncited. It stays on the legal side of the line — no disease named, disclaimer present — but it is the sentence a regulator would read twice. The age-related Bifidobacterium decline premise is real and is the most substantively grounded demographic rationale this project has encountered; the supplementation inference is what is unsupported as published.
The record: vitalplanet.com product page, verbatim, 2026-07-31
Finding 6 house-codes-under-a-true-strain-transparency-mark
Fifty-three of 60 designators are Vital Planet house codes that cannot be ordered from a culture collection or found in a paper, presented in the same typography and the same parentheses as the seven real strains, under a seal reading "TRUE STRAIN Transparency".
The record: DSLD 320718 [Formulation re Other] "True strain transparency"
Finding 7 certification-unfalsifiable-by-construction
"cGMP Certified, Third-Party Tested" with no issuer, no lab, no scope, no certificate number and no COA. This is a weaker position than a certification whose register happens to be unreachable — an unreachable register is at least a checkable claim that is blocked. Here there is nothing to check.
The record: Page schema.org additionalProperty block, byte-identical to the Men's Daily SKU's
Finding 8 nothing-male-specific-in-the-formula
No prostate, urinary or androgen ingredient. As with the Men's Daily SKU the sex claim rests entirely on a ratio, and across the family that ratio takes four different values — Men's 50:10, Women's 55:5, Men 55+ 25:35, Women 55+ 45:15. It tracks the SKU, not the sex.
The record: DSLD 320722, 292775, 320718, 292774
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.
- "cGMP Certified, Third-Party Tested" (schema.org Certification field) status
- No certifying body is named anywhere, so there is no register to check — an unfalsifiable claim rather than an unreachable one. cGMP is a legal baseline under 21 CFR Part 111, not a certification, and the label's wording is "Assembled in a facility in the USA that is GMP". "Third-Party Tested" names no lab, no scope, no certificate and no COA. This page's schema.org additionalProperty block is byte-identical to the Men's Daily SKU's.
- A legible Supplement Facts panel
- 500x500 is the maximum resolution available. Verified three ways — the Shopify CDN returns 500x500 even when asked for width=2400, every image on the product record is 500x500, and the same asset on Amazon's CDN returns HTTP 400 for its _SL1600_ and _AC_SL1500_ variants. The panel was transcribed only by cropping and Lanczos-upscaling five times.
- The blend mass
- UNRESOLVED. DSLD 320718 and 322845 both record 177 mg; the brand's current label image reads 269.4 mg, and DSLD's own record for the refrigerated Men 55+ (320717) also reads 269.4 mg. 269.4 mg is treated as authoritative because it is on current artwork and corroborated by a second government record. 177 mg is not published.
- Whether supplementing Bifidobacterium benefits men over 55
- The premise that Bifidobacterium declines with age is real and widely reported. The inference from that to "therefore supplement more Bifido" is not evidenced on the page, and whether trials exist was not searched. Marked unverified rather than absent — it must not be published as an absence without that search.
- Per-strain CFU for any of the 60 organisms
- Undisclosed. 60 organisms share one 269.4 mg, 60 billion CFU figure.
- A UPC cross-check
- DSLD's upcSku field is empty on all seven Vital Planet records examined.
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.
The most concrete finding about this product is that you cannot read its label.
The Supplement Facts panel exists only as a JPEG — no HTML, no structured data — and that JPEG is published at 500 by 500 pixels, which is the maximum available anywhere. The brand’s CDN returns 500×500 when asked for 2400. Amazon’s copy of the same asset is 500×500, and its larger size variants return HTTP 400. At that resolution the strain designators are about four pixels tall; transcribing them required cropping and upscaling five times. Sixty organisms, a proprietary blend, and no legible way for a buyer to check any of it on the brand’s own website.
What the panel says, once you can read it, is that this is the same product as Vital Planet’s Men’s Daily. The same sixty strains, the same designators, in the same order, at the same $46.99. What changed is the ratio — 25 billion Lacto to 35 billion Bifido here, against 50:10 on the daily — and the prebiotic blend. The rationale offered is that Bifidobacterium declines with age, which is genuinely true and the best-grounded demographic premise in this whole project. The step from there to “so take 35 billion Bifido” is the part with no citation.
And the CFU number still has no time anchor, on a brand whose women’s labels promise potency until the expiration date.