Comparisons

Two labels side by side. One verdict.

These pages put the labels next to each other, check what the trials actually measured and in how many people, work out what a day costs at the dose on the pack, and end with the one we would buy — even when the answer is neither.

Fiber: psyllium against everything it gets compared with

Five of these pages start from the same fact: Metamucil, ColonBroom and the store-brand fiber powders are all psyllium husk at about 3.4 to 3.6 g a dose, so the trial evidence (the clearest effect in a meta-analysis of 16 fiber trials in chronic constipation, and 28 trials in cholesterol) belongs to the ingredient rather than to a brand. What separates them is dose per serving, the other ingredients, how each is sold and what a day costs. The other two fiber pages set psyllium against a different fiber altogether: wheat dextrin (Benefiber) and methylcellulose (Citrucel), each with a much thinner trial record. The magnesium page compares bulk fiber with an osmotic.

Probiotics: which strain was tested on your problem

The probiotic pages turn on strain identity. Align’s Bifidobacterium longum 35624 has an IBS symptom-severity result; Culturelle’s Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG has the antibiotic-diarrhea trials; Florastor’s Saccharomyces boulardii is a yeast that survives a course of antibiotics; Seed’s DS-01 is a 24-strain synbiotic with one six-week trial of the finished capsule. Each page says which of those trials measured the thing you are buying it for, and what a month costs.

Herbal: peppermint oil against a six-plant liquid

IBgard and Iberogast are both sold for the same shelf of complaints and answer different ones. Enteric-coated peppermint oil has the cramping and urgency trials; the six-plant Iberogast formulation has the fullness and nausea trials, plus a safety history worth reading before choosing. The page sets the two bodies of evidence side by side.

Which comparison do you need?

• Hard or infrequent stools: start with psyllium husk vs Metamucil, then psyllium vs magnesium if fiber has not moved things after a month.
• Psyllium gave you gas: methylcellulose vs psyllium and Metamucil vs Benefiber cover the two usual alternatives and what each one loses in evidence.
• Bloating, cramping, unpredictable bowels: Align vs Seed DS-01 for the two probiotics with IBS-type trials, and IBgard vs Iberogast for the herbal route.
• On antibiotics: Culturelle vs Florastor.
• Not sure it is a probiotic at all: the guide to digestive enzymes vs probiotics for bloating sorts the two categories before you compare products inside one.

What every comparison covers

• Every figure traces to a label, a retailer listing or a published paper, and each page lists its sources at the bottom. Where a number is not published, we say so rather than estimate.
• Trials are reported as they were run: what was measured, in how many people, for how long. A mechanism that sounds convincing is not evidence that a product works.
• We read what large numbers of buyers consistently report, and say where that agrees with the research and where it does not.
• Where the two products have never been compared directly in a trial, we say so plainly. Most of them have not.

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