One product, one panel, one record.
Wholesome Wellness Raw Probiotics 100 Billion CFU — label audit
The page claims "34 of the most clinically effective probiotic strains that have been shown in studies" and that "each probiotic strain has been shown in clinical trials". Not one of the 34 organisms carries a strain designator, so not one of those attributions can be checked — and eight of the 34 are yeasts.
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
- 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
17.1 out of 100
Rank 135 of the 154 products in this audit the rubric can score. This rank is shared with 6 other products — 7 products sit on 17.1 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 34 organism slots carry a printed strain designator. | 0 / 34 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| Per-organism amount printed | 0.20 | 0 of 34 organism slots have an amount of its own; the rest are inside a blend total. | 0 / 34 = 0.0000 | 0.0000 |
| What the CFU count is measured against | 0.22 | Potency basis "at-manufacture": CFU figure printed yes, single basis stated yes, basis reaches expiry no — 2 of 3. | 2 / 3 = 0.6667 | 0.146667 |
| Printed designators that lead to a human trial | 0.20 | 0 of 34 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 / 34 = 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 |
0.146667 — the last column added up — divided by 0.86, the weight this record could answer, is 0.1705. Multiplied by 100 and rounded to one decimal, that is the 17.1 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 | 100 billion CFU (Probiotic Complex, 250 mg) |
| What that count is measured against | At manufacture only |
| Strain designators | None — species only |
| Organism slots transcribed here | 34 — the full panel |
| Marketed as | Unisex |
100 billion CFU, Formulated with 100 billion CFU at time of manufacture.
The panel’s own words on potency, verbatim.
The count is stated at time of manufacture only. The panel makes no commitment about what is alive when you swallow it.
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. acidophilus | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| B. bifidum | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| B. animalis lactis | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. paracasei | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| B. longum | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. brevis | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. bulgaricus | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. casei | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. fermentum | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. helveticus | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. kefirano-faciens (correct name: Lactobacillus kefiranofaciens) | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. kefirgranum | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. rhamnosus | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Lactococcus lactis | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Lactococcus cremoris | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| S. thermophilus | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. kefir (correct name: Lentilactobacillus kefiri) | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. parakefiri (correct name: Lentilactobacillus parakefiri) | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. plantarum | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis biovar diacetylactis | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Leuconostoc lactis | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Leuconostoc mesenteroides | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Leuconostoc cremoris | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Leuconostoc dextranicum | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Kluyveromyces marxianus | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Brettanomyces anomalus | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Debaryomyces hansenii | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Saccharomyces unisporus | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Saccharomyces turicensis | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Saccharomyces cerevisiae | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Saccharomyces exiguus | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| Torulaspora delbrueckii | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| B. breve | — none printed | — not stated separately | No designator printed | — |
| L. salivarius | — 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.
- NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record — DSLD 322303 (opens in a new tab) captured Entered 2024-12-21, on-market. The current label: 34 organisms, Probiotic Complex 250 mg with the at-manufacture note, Organic Prebiotic Complex 150 mg, Digestive Enzyme Complex 200 mg and Fruit and Vegetable Complex 50 mg. Carries no UPC at all.
- NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record — DSLD 240395 (opens in a new tab) captured The 2020 label, now off-market, carrying the deleted "provides an effective level until at least the 'best by' date" and "Potency guaranteed" statements, and the older "Lactobacillus parakefir" spelling.
- NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database record — DSLD 322301 (opens in a new tab) captured Women's Raw Probiotics comparator, used for the 17/17/17 organism set-diff.
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
$0.83 a day at the dose the label itself instructs.
- Price
- $24.99 USD
- What that buys
- 30-capsule bottle (30 servings, 1 capsule per serving)
- Price checked
- — the source we read it fromhttps://wholesome-wellness.com/product/raw-probiotics-100-billion-cfu/ — 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 |
|---|---|---|
| "FDA, NSF, and GMP certified/registered" facility | Brand-asserted, unverified | 30 July 2026 |
| "FDA, UL, and GMP certified registered lab facility" | Brand-asserted, unverified | 30 July 2026 |
| "Third party lab tested for purity and potency" | Not checked | not checked |
"FDA, NSF, and GMP certified/registered" facility
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
Three problems in one sentence. FDA registers food and dietary supplement facilities under 21 U.S.C. §350d; it does not certify them, and registration is not an endorsement or a quality mark. No certificate number, facility name or registration ID is given, so there is nothing to look up in NSF's public listings. And the same page names a different certifier further down — see below.
"FDA, UL, and GMP certified registered lab facility"
The badge is displayed, but the register could not be reached to confirm it. We call this unverified, not false.
This appears roughly 900 words below the NSF claim, on the same page, for the same facility. NSF appears once and UL appears once, on both the unisex and the women's product pages. A facility could hold both, but a brand that held either would name it consistently. That is not a certification; it is boilerplate.
"Third party lab tested for purity and potency"
We have not queried this register for this product. It does not mean the product holds nothing.
Names no lab, publishes no certificate of analysis, and is not tied to a lot number.
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 Wholesome Wellness Women's Raw Probiotics. Diffed .
What the two panels differ by
- Set-diffing the two 34-organism lists gives a perfectly symmetric split: 17 organisms on both labels, 17 unique to this one, 17 unique to the women's. Exactly half the formula is different. DSLD 322303 versus DSLD 322301
- This product is a kefir culture — it holds all eight yeasts, all four kefir-named lactobacilli and all the Leuconostoc entries. The women's product is a conventional lactic acid bacteria blend, adding L. crispatus, L. jensenii, L. gasseri, L. johnsonii, L. reuteri, L. sakei, L. curvatus, B. adolescentis, B. longum infantis, B. animalis, Lactococcus lactis cremoris, Pediococcus pentosaceus, P. acidilactici, Saccharomyces boulardii, Bacillus coagulans, Bacillus subtilis and Enterococcus faecalis. DSLD 322303 versus DSLD 322301
- The women's product is 60 capsules taken twice daily and costs $32.38; this one is 30 capsules taken once daily at $24.99. Both claim 100 billion CFU and 250 mg of Probiotic Complex per serving, so the women's delivers half the mass per capsule and requires twice the pills for the same claimed dose — at a 29.6% premium, $1.08 a day against $0.83. Both product pages and DSLD 322303 versus DSLD 322301
What is identical across the pair
- Both claim 34 strains and 100 billion CFU from a 250 mg Probiotic Complex per serving.
- Both share the prebiotic complex, the digestive enzyme complex and the fruit-and-vegetable complex.
- Neither discloses a single strain designator.
Every finding on this page, with the record behind it
Finding 1 each-strain-shown-in-clinical-trials-with-zero-designators
Verbatim from the page: "Our gastroenterologist doctor formulated probiotic includes 34 of the most clinically effective probiotic strains that have been shown in studies to positively effect your health. Each probiotic strain has been shown in clinical trials to positively help with everything from gut health to skin health." Every organism on the panel is species-level only. A label that discloses no strain designator cannot support a claim that each of its strains has been shown in clinical trials. The two statements are not reconcilable.
The record: DSLD 322303 · wholesome-wellness.com product page, verified live 2026-07-30 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 2 strain-count-inflated-and-eight-are-yeasts
This is a kefir starter culture, not a conventional probiotic blend: 26 bacteria and 8 fungi. Leuconostoc cremoris and Leuc. dextranicum are subspecies of Leuc. mesenteroides, all three counted separately; Lactococcus lactis biovar diacetylactis is a biovar of a species already listed. Removing the unambiguous duplicates takes 34 down to roughly 30 distinct taxa — and since no designators are given, there is no way to tell whether the remainder are 30 different organisms or fewer.
The record: DSLD 322303 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 3 potency-guarantee-got-weaker-over-time
The 2020 label said: "Contains a minimum of 100 billion live bacteria when manufactured, and provides an effective level until at least the 'best by' date", plus "Potency guaranteed". Both are gone from the 2024 label, which states only the at-manufacture figure. The current product makes no end-of-life potency claim of any kind. ("An effective level" was itself undefined and unfalsifiable — but it was more than what replaced it.)
The record: DSLD 240395 versus DSLD 322303 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 4 two-different-certifiers-named-for-one-facility
"Made in USA in an FDA, NSF, and GMP certified/registered manufacturing facility" appears once on the page; roughly 900 words later, "Made in the USA in an FDA, UL, and GMP certified registered lab facility". NSF and UL are unrelated certifiers. And "FDA certified" is not a status that exists — FDA registers facilities, it does not certify them.
The record: wholesome-wellness.com product page, both strings verified live 2026-07-30
Finding 5 live-disease-claims-on-a-site-fda-has-written-to
The probiotic pages currently attribute, by named condition: diarrhoea, allergies, IBS, pouchitis, autoimmune disorders, rosacea, eczema, blood-pressure regulation, gut and urinary-tract infections, tooth decay, gastroenteritis, food poisoning, neurological issues, lactose intolerance and yeast infections. Each is attributed to a species that appears on the label without a designator, so none of the attributions is verifiable even setting the regulatory question aside.
The record: wholesome-wellness.com product pages, all claims verified verbatim live 2026-07-30
Finding 6 fda-warning-letter-to-this-website
FDA issued a warning letter to Wholesome Wellness on 18 February 2021 (MARCS-CMS 612257, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, signed by the Director, Office of Compliance), stating that it had reviewed `www.wholesome-wellness.com` and determined that claims there established the product as a drug under section 201(g)(1)(B) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
The record: FDA MARCS-CMS 612257, 2021-02-18 — open it (opens in a new tab)
Finding 7 medical-grade-and-cfu-keyword-stuffing
"Medical Grade, Organic, Non-GMO, Cruelty-Free, Live, Vegan Probiotics" — "medical grade" has no regulatory meaning for a dietary supplement. And: "way more potent than other 5, 10, 13, 15, 40, 45, 50, 60, 70, 80 Billion CFU probiotic supplements", which is search-engine copy and also contradicts the field's own consensus that more colony-forming units do not always equate with enhanced effects.
The record: wholesome-wellness.com product page, verified live 2026-07-30
Finding 8 womens-benefit-claimed-on-the-page-sold-to-men
From this product's own page: "Lactobacillus fermentum – … it is also one of the few strains particularly beneficial for helping to deal with issues more prevalent in women, like yeast infections and UTIs.""
The record: wholesome-wellness.com product page, verified verbatim live 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.
- "FDA, NSF, and GMP certified/registered" facility status
- Three problems in one sentence. FDA registers food and dietary supplement facilities under 21 U.S.C. §350d; it does not certify them, and registration is not an endorsement or a quality mark. No certificate number, facility name or registration ID is given, so there is nothing to look up in NSF's public listings. And the same page names a different certifier further down — see below.
- "FDA, UL, and GMP certified registered lab facility" status
- This appears roughly 900 words below the NSF claim, on the same page, for the same facility. NSF appears once and UL appears once, on both the unisex and the women's product pages. A facility could hold both, but a brand that held either would name it consistently. That is not a certification; it is boilerplate.
- "Third party lab tested for purity and potency" status
- Names no lab, publishes no certificate of analysis, and is not tied to a lot number.
- Which certifier, if any, holds the facility
- NSF and UL are both named for the same facility on the same page, with no certificate number, facility name or registration ID for either. No certifier database lookup is possible because no certifier identifier is supplied.
- Any per-strain CFU or milligram allocation
- None. One 250 mg complex covers all 34 organisms.
- How much of the 100 billion survives to the date on the bottle
- Nothing on the label or the website says. The 2020 label at least claimed the product "provides an effective level until at least the 'best by' date"; the 2024 label drops that and states only the at-manufacture figure.
- The scanned label images behind the DSLD records
- DSLD's label PDFs return HTTP 403; the structured JSON is open and is what was used.
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 claim and the label cannot both be true.
“Our gastroenterologist doctor formulated probiotic includes 34 of the most clinically effective probiotic strains that have been shown in studies to positively effect your health. Each probiotic strain has been shown in clinical trials to positively help with everything from gut health to skin health.”
Now the panel, as the NIH label database transcribes it: L. acidophilus, B. bifidum, B. animalis lactis, L. paracasei, B. longum… thirty-four organisms, and not one strain designator among them. A label that names no strain cannot support a claim that each of its strains has been shown in clinical trials, because there is no strain to look up.
Eight of the thirty-four are yeasts — Kluyveromyces, Brettanomyces, Debaryomyces, four Saccharomyces and Torulaspora. This is a kefir starter culture, and the brand’s own copy concedes it once, in passing, as “34 symbiotic good bacterial strains, fungus, & live cultures” — while the product front and every retail listing say “34 strains” flat. Several of the remaining entries are subspecies or biovars of species already counted, which brings a defensible tally down to about thirty.
The potency guarantee moved backwards. The 2020 label said the product “provides an effective level until at least the ‘best by’ date” and “Potency guaranteed”. Both sentences are gone from the 2024 label, which states only the at-manufacture figure. That earlier phrasing was itself undefined and unfalsifiable — but it was more than what replaced it, which is nothing.
On certification the page argues with itself. It says the facility is “FDA, NSF, and GMP certified/registered”, and roughly nine hundred words further down, “FDA, UL, and GMP certified registered lab facility”. Two unrelated certifiers named for one facility, on one page, with no certificate number for either. And “FDA certified” is not a status that exists: FDA registers facilities; registration is not an endorsement.
One item has to be published with its scope attached, and the scope is doing real work. FDA issued
this website a warning letter in February 2021, having reviewed www.wholesome-wellness.com and
determined that claims there made a product a drug under the Act. That letter is about a different
product — “Natural Anxiety & Depression Relief”, now gone from the catalogue — not about the
probiotic. It is relevant only because the finding was against this exact site, and because the letter
says in terms that its list of violations is not all-inclusive. Five and a half years later the
probiotic pages still name diarrhoea, IBS, pouchitis, rosacea, eczema, tooth decay, gastroenteritis
and autoimmune disorders.