Bioma is a personalized gut health supplement brand that’s blown up in popularity over the past few months. The company claims that since your gut is unique, your probiotic supplement should reflect that.
But does Bioma actually sell personalized supplements or is this just a marketing claim? Does the brand use research-backed ingredients for gut health? Does Bioma contain any questionable additives? And how do real users rate and describe the effects of this supplement?
In this article we’ll answer all of these questions and more, as we analyze the ingredients in Bioma based on medical studies to give our take on whether or not this supplement is likely to be effective for optimizing gut health.
We’ll share our concerns about the company’s marketing strategy, and feature unsponsored customer reviews of the brand.
Is Bioma Actually Personalized?
As highlighted above, the Bioma website strongly suggests that the brand sells personalized supplements that are unique (or at least tailored) to each customer.
Claiming that “your probiotics should reflect that” your gut is unique made me think that after completing the gut quiz, I would be eligible for a supplement tailored specifically based on the answers submitted.
However, that may not be the case.
I completed the Bioma gut quiz twice with entirely different answers (one set of responses focused on bloating and the next set focused on fatigue). However, the ingredients in the supplement after completing the quiz with entirely different answers were exactly the same.
Also, the supplement is sold on Amazon with one formulation.
This makes sense in practice but strikes us as a questionable marketing strategy. It would be nearly impossible for a supplement company to manufacture a unique supplement for every customer, but if Bioma only sells one formulation, they should make that more clear to be fair to their customers in our opinion.
We also take issue with the “diagnoses” created by Bioma after the quiz is completed. Bioma is a supplement company, not a healthcare company, and gut inflammation is diagnosed with medical testing, not with user-submitted online quizzes.
This is an unscientific approach in our opinion, and consumers with supposed gastrointestinal disease should speak to a doctor about their symptoms rather than try to resolve them with online quizzes.
But does the Bioma supplement contain research-backed ingredients? We’ll analyze the ingredients in the next section of this article.
Ingredient Analysis
The ingredients in Bioma are shown above.
Xylooligosaccharides are a research-backed prebiotic ingredient, but we can’t find any medical evidence they’re effective at a dose as low as in Bioma.
In fact, Bioma’s own scientific references page cites studies that use much higher doses than included in their own supplement. One of the medical reviews cited by the brand concludes the following:
“[Xylooligosaccharide] supplementation may be beneficial to gastrointestinal microbiota and 2.8 g per day may be more effective than 1.4 g per day.”
2.8 grams (g) is 28x the dose in Bioma.
Tributyrin is a triglyceride that’s clinically shown to have anti-inflammatory effects in the gut, as we documented in our review on the best probiotics for women.
Proprietary Probiotic Blend is the final active ingredient, and contains a total dose of 9 billion colony-forming units (CFUs), which is within the typical dosing range according to a Fact Sheet on probiotics published by the National Institutes of Health.
A specific strain of Bifidobacterium lactis, which is a probiotic species in Bioma, is clinically shown to improve gastrointestinal symptoms after antibiotic treatment.
The inactive ingredients in this formulation are likely safe and non-toxic.
Overall, we consider Bioma likely to support optimal gut health. We take issue with the way this company markets their supplement, but we have no concerns with the supplement's formulation.
This is a better-quality gut health supplement than the average gut health supplement we’ve analyzed to date on Illuminate Health.
Can You Naturally Relieve Bloating?
A YouTube creator named “Pick Up Limes” has a video with over 1 million views that has some suggestions about how to relieve bloating naturally:
Our Clean Gut Health Picks
MBG Organic Fiber Potency+ is our top fiber pick.
MBG Organic Fiber Potency+ contains 100% soluble fiber, which was described as "one of the most important nutrients for the gut microbiota" in a clinical review published in the Molecules journal.
Ritual Synbiotic+ is our top value probiotic pick.
It contains prebiotics, probiotics and postbiotics, and costs under $1.50 per serving at the time of updating this article.
Probiotics "can improve in the immune, gastrointestinal...health systems in healthy adults" according to a 2019 medical review.
VSL#3 is our top premium probiotic pick.
This probiotic supplement has been studied in 25 clinical trials, and a 2020 meta-study on VSL#3 concluded the following:
"...many studies demonstrated that VSL#3 has a beneficial effect on obesity and diabetes, allergic diseases, nervous systemic diseases, AS, bone diseases, and female reproductive systemic diseases."
All of the products recommended in this section are entirely free of ingredients that we consider to be unhealthy.
Will Bioma Cause Side Effects?
Bioma doesn’t appear to have been studied in any clinical trials, which makes it more challenging to determine whether or not the supplement is likely to cause side effects.
However, we can make an educated guess based on its ingredients.
Xylooligosaccharides were shown to cause nausea and vomiting at high doses in an animal study published in the Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology journal, but we would not consider the dose in Bioma nearly high enough to cause that effect.
Probiotics can cause minor digestive side effects like gas and bloating in some people in the early stages of use, as we documented in our Bye Bye Bloat reviews article, but the probiotic dose in Bioma is moderate and we consider this side effect to be unlikely in otherwise healthy adults.
The Bioma website mentions that bloating may be a temporary side effect.
Where to Get the Best Price
Bioma is sold on the brand’s website and on Amazon. Here’s a price breakdown at the time of publishing this article:
Brand website: $57.59 (free shipping, link)
Amazon: $44.99 (free shipping, link to Amazon listing)
Bioma is currently 22% cheaper on Amazon than on the brand’s website.
Real Customers Review Bioma
Amazon is a better resource for honest customer reviews than a brand’s website in our opinion.
Bioma has been reviewed over 40 times on Amazon with an average review rating of 4 out of 5 stars.
The top positive review from a verified purchaser comes from a user named “Sandra Castillo” who gives the product a 5/5 star rating and claims it had a secondary benefit:
“I do not feel bloated as much. My digestion issues have been improved and no more hot flashes at all!”
The top negative review from a verified purchaser is written by a user named “DARCY CONOR” who gives the product a 1/5 star rating and claims to have experienced side effects:
“AWFUL CRAMPS at 2 pills (as suggested) and also at 1 pill. So sorry my sister spent on this as a gift.A total waste of money. Save yourself the pain.”
Pros and Cons of Bioma
Here are the pros and cons of Bioma in our opinion:
Pros:
- Effective formulation
- Should support optimal gut health
- Research-backed probiotic dose
- No unhealthy additives
- Contains prebiotics and probiotics
Cons:
- Questionable marketing practices
- Doesn’t appear clinically tested
- Hard to find unsponsored customer reviews online
- Xylooligosaccharides may be underdosed
