Fungus Clear is a dietary supplement made by Vitality Health that claims to kill toe fungus naturally by strengthening the immune system. It’s primarily probiotic-based.
In this article we’ll review the formulation of Fungus Clear based on medical research to determine if it’s likely to work. The Supplement Facts label of this product is split into two parts, which we’ll review separately: the Probiotic Fungus Blend, and the Proprietary Blend.
Probiotic Fungus Blend Review
The bigger ingredient blend in terms of dosage in Fungus Clear is a blend of probiotics, totalling 6 billion colony-forming units (CFUs).Â
While medical research suggests that probiotic supplementation may be effective for internal fungal issues (in the gut), we haven’t come across any medical research even testing oral probiotics for treating topical fungus.
There is also significant medical research suggesting topical use of probiotics may be effective for skin conditions, but it seems illogical to take an oral supplement with seemingly random strains of probiotics to treat a topical skin condition.
Vitality Health doesn’t publish or link out to any research on their website or Amazon listing proving that the probiotics they used in this formula are effective for treating topical fungus, so we’ll assume this blend is totally ineffective. There is simply no research we can identify suggesting it works.
One red flag about this product is that it only lists the probiotic species, and not the strain. This is a sign of formulation inexperience or incompetence in our opinion.
Probiotics have a species (like lactobacillus acidophilus) and a strain (like lactobacillus acidophilus NCK56). The strain is a specific subset of the species, and different strains within the same species can have different health effects.
We recently reviewed another probiotic supplement called BioFit which had this same labeling issue.Â
If a company won’t tell their customers (or doesn’t know themselves) exactly what strain of probiotics is in their supplement, we’d recommend avoiding them entirely.
Proprietary Blend Review
The second ingredient blend in Fungus Clear is a proprietary (prop) blend totalling 452.5 milligrams (mg).
We disagree on principle with companies using prop blends. It’s a way to hide the exact ingredient dosages, since manufacturers can just list the total dosage of the blend.
The ingredients in this blend are turmeric root extract and BioPerine, which is a patented black pepper extract.
Black pepper extract does improve bioavailability of turmeric significantly, based on medical research, but we don’t believe this blend will be at all effective for topical fungus.
While turmeric is a promising internal antifungal treatment, we can’t locate any research suggesting it can treat athlete’s foot or other toe and nail fungus when taken orally.
Overall we don’t believe this proprietary blend is effective for topical fungus relief.
Better Alternatives
We generally recommend visiting your doctor or dermatologist for treating topical fungus, but consumers seeking botanical treatments for topical fungus may want to consider chitosan.
Chitosan is a naturally-derived compound sourced from the shells of crustacean animals, and it was highlighted as the best natural option in a medical review of natural vs. conventional treatments for dermatophytosis (which is the underlying cause of athlete’s foot).
We don’t recommend taking chitosan orally or topically without the approval of a doctor, as even though it was found to be totally non-toxic in the linked study, the research on this compound is still very early-stage and it would be best to work with a licensed physician to establish dosing.
