Multi-GI 5 Reviews: The right probiotic blend for you?

Probiotic supplements have proliferated in recent years as more people understand the incredible power gut bacteria have over our health. The growing popularity of these supplements is understandable, as the ability of our gut microbiome to affect our health may reach well beyond physical wellness; studies link gut bacteria balance to everything from cognitive function to emotional well-being.1

Here, we thoroughly explore Multi-GI 5 — one of several wellness products offered by Unify Health, and the one with the most potential impact on your gut microbiome. It contains a probiotic blend combined with amino acids, botanical extracts, and minerals that support gut health. It also includes a prebiotic blend to help feed the good bacteria, keeping them happy after they’ve landed in your gut. Find out how Multi-GI 5 compares with other probiotics and whether it's worth your consideration.

There are a few good reasons to consider Multi-GI 5 over its competition, particularly if your main concerns revolve around inflammation in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. It relies on five probiotic species that have been the subject of numerous studies and are known to reduce inflammation and temper the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). However, its lack of strain-specific ingredient transparency makes it hard to know its exact potential. Also, it avoids some popular but less effective species that could lower its price, making it both more enticing and a bit more expensive than some competitors. You can save some money by setting up a free account or buying in bulk, but the latter option still involves a significant investment.

Over the past two decades, Innerbody Research has helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions about staying healthy and living healthier lifestyles. And with each passing day, it seems we learn more about how probiotics and the microbiome play a critical role in overall wellness.

Our team has tested numerous probiotic supplements over the years, from off-the-shelf options like Multi-GI 5 to fully customized blends from companies like Viome. We’ve dedicated hundreds of hours to researching the microbiome and probiotics, including reading hundreds of clinical studies and visiting laboratories where microbiome testing takes place.

Additionally, like all health-related content on this website, this review was thoroughly vetted by one or more members of our Medical Review Board for accuracy.

Whenever we evaluate a probiotic supplement, we review all pertinent research published in recent years and consider several crucial criteria to recommend for or against its use. In the case of Multi-GI 5, we looked at its effectiveness, cost, safety, and convenience above all else.

As we’ll discuss, comparing Multi-GI 5’s effectiveness to its competition is problematic due to the mystery surrounding the exact probiotic strains it uses and their exact CFU counts. Given the company’s reputation and the information we’ve gleaned from users, we’re able to say that it’s moderately effective in its field, though some other options offer more specific details and higher doses of probiotics.

Multi-GI 5 does offer a second ingestion method other than the capsules that most companies use. This comes down to a matter of preference, as the costs of capsules and powder are the same, and the ingredient profiles should perform similarly, despite noteworthy dose differences. As a result, the convenience criterion — while crucial in its own right — didn’t quite carry the same weight as other parameters.

Let’s take a look at our four evaluation criteria more closely.

Effectiveness

Determining Multi-GI 5's efficacy is something of a challenge since the company provides only the genus and species of the probiotics they deliver. We'll go deeper into just how specific you can get with your probiotic strains a little later, but right now we’ll say that without strain-specific detail, the exact characteristics of a given probiotic are harder to ascertain.

When we originally reviewed Multi-GI 5, we reached out to the company’s product development team for strain-level information, and they told us they’d get back to us within a month. Five weeks later, having heard nothing, we reached out again. This time, they told us the information was proprietary and they could not share it. Their claim, in our estimation, is without merit. We’ve evaluated dozens of probiotics in our research, and well over half of them provide strain-specific detail.

That said, genus and species give us enough information to understand the company's intentions in choosing certain probiotic microorganisms in its formula, and we can get a good sense of what they're likely to do for most people.

For Multi-GI 5, we know that we’re getting:

• Lactobacillus gasseri, which may help reduce body fat and hip circumference among obese adults, possibly by influencing insulin resistance2
• Bacillus coagulans, which has been shown to alleviate symptoms of IBS, including constipation3
• Lactobacillus rhamnosus, which can stimulate immune responses and prevent certain allergic reactions4
• Lactobacillus casei, which has been used in studies to reduce arthritis inflammation5
• Lactobacillus plantarum, which helps maintain intestinal permeability and may function as an antioxidant6

These five are among the most popular and effective probiotic species available, each bringing a different benefit to the table.

Unfortunately, Multi-GI 5 does not list its probiotic quantities in colony-forming units (CFU), the standard for understanding the potency of a given probiotic. Instead, they provide the weight of their probiotic combination in milligrams. Probiotics are living organisms, but they weigh the same dead as they do alive. Without explicitly listing CFU or, preferably, active colony-forming units (ACFU), it's hard to know how well a probiotic may work.

A more recent conversation via the site’s new chat module got us as far as the CFU/g concentration of each probiotic used. A little bit of math led us to conclude that the formula uses approximately 5 billion CFU of its five probiotics combined. Most probiotics companies use this number as a selling point, so the fact that Unify chooses to conceal it is a little confusing, especially when 5 billion CFU is a respectable number.

All that said, the combination of probiotics, prebiotics, amino acids, and minerals in Multi-GI 5 presents what could be a highly effective formula. There’s no reason to believe the company is filling its supplements with inactive probiotics, but the weight just doesn’t tell the whole story.

Cost

At first glance, Multi-GI 5 doesn't appear to be a great deal. It contains only five probiotic species and costs more than some competitors that have two or three times as many in their blends. But once you get over the sticker shock, you might notice an offer to save by creating a free account. We highly recommend you do this if you're interested in Multi-GI 5 or any Unify Health Labs product. Our team found savings ranging from 20-40% on certain products, including Multi-GI 5, and we were not inundated by constant promotional emails or any other form of aggressive marketing.

Here's a quick look at what you stand to save by opening a free account before purchasing Multi-GI 5:

You can still find many probiotics that cost less than Multi-GI 5, even at its highest bulk level, but those may not contain the same quantity or quality of secondary ingredients that you find in Multi-GI 5. In particular, if you've tried probiotic supplements in the past and have had subsequent digestive issues that caused you to stop, you may have a better experience with Multi-GI 5, as many of its secondary ingredients support digestion and absorption.

Safety

While the most specific effects of a probiotic rely heavily on exact strains, understanding genus and species is typically enough to ensure a product's safety profile. For Multi-GI 5, those species have undergone a tremendous amount of research into various potential benefits, always with an eye toward safety.

Unify Health also makes its supplements in the U.S. in FDA-regulated cGMP-certified facilities. The company website mentions quality testing, but it doesn't get into specifics. Typically, when a company performs third-party testing, it comes at a significant expense and provides a marketable bragging point. Companies like Ritual and HUM Nutrition make it very clear the extent to which they subject their products to external testing. The fact that Unify Health doesn't say whether its testing is third-party or in-house leads us to believe that the company hasn’t opted for the more trustworthy third-party variety.

Another knock against Multi-GI 5's safety profile is its use of inulin from chicory root as a prebiotic and oligosaccharides for sweetness in the powder formulation. Competing studies disagree on whether small amounts of FODMAPs like these could actually benefit people with IBS and similar digestive disorders.7 But the risk isn't worth it for those with particularly sensitive stomachs, especially considering that FODMAP-friendly prebiotic fibers are common.

Convenience

Convenience in a probiotic depends on things like customer service, subscription options, and dosing simplicity. Since many probiotics come in large pills that can be hard to swallow, Multi-GI 5 gains points in convenience for offering a tasty drink mix alternative, which the company recommends mixing with water or tea. Of course, a powder is less portable than capsules, and you’ll need more water to take it than you would a few small pills.

Unify Health's 90-day money-back guarantee also adds a lot to its convenience rating. That guarantee allows you to try the product for a few months to see how it works for you, and you'll only be responsible for return shipping if you choose to send it back for a full refund.

Unify Health doesn't quite live up to our convenience standards in its lack of subscription options, which would add a degree of simplicity and another opportunity for savings. Some of our favorite probiotic providers offer the choice between one-off purchases and subscriptions, which we generally prefer.

Multi-GI 5 is a health and digestive supplement from Unify Health Labs. Its reputation is still being forged, as the company only started in 2019, but it quickly attained a celebrity partnership with American Idol’s Randy Jackson in an attempt to bolster its credibility. When we last reviewed the company, it offered nine products designed to support healthy digestion and nutrient absorption, bolster immunity, or improve your general wellness. Since then, the catalog has been whittled down to just the capsule and powder forms of Multi-GI 5, with no other products available. That is, it’s now Unify Health’s only product.

Multi-GI 5 combines minerals and amino acids with a probiotic blend and prebiotic fiber. It aims to populate the gut with good bacteria to improve digestion and nutrient absorption, repair perforations in the intestines, and regulate bowel function. Its specific probiotic species and genera boast successful trials in maintaining GI health, but Unify Health doesn’t share details about either the specific strains or the quantities of its probiotics, making Multi-GI 5’s efficacy difficult to assess outside of anecdotal reporting.

Unlike many probiotics that are sold only in capsule form, Multi-GI 5 is available as a capsule or as a powder mix — an easier-to-take alternative for anyone who has difficulty swallowing pills. The powder comes in Lemon Limeade flavor, which is the only flavor option at this time. Most users seem to appreciate the taste, but we should note that it is sweetened with several natural and artificial ingredients, including:

• Erythritol
• Monk fruit extract
• Enzymatically modified stevia
• Oligosaccharides

These ingredients — particularly the stevia, which can have an artificial taste — might be a turn-off for some, who may prefer the capsule form of Multi-GI 5. The capsule form is only half as potent as the drink mix, but, as we’ll discuss below, it should deliver similar performance thanks to the ability of capsules to get more material through the stomach unaffected by gastric acid.

Multi-GI 5 powder vs. capsules

Multi-GI 5 was originally a drink mix, but Unify Health Labs saw fit to develop a capsule form. The capsules and powder deliver nearly identical formulas but for their quantities and the 1mg of iron you get exclusively in the powder.

But why would the company recommend a capsule dose that’s half as much as the powder? Well, certain ingredients in Multi-GI 5, especially its probiotics, are vulnerable to stomach acid. Consequently, four out of the five probiotics in Multi-GI 5 (the exception being the branded strain of Bacillus coagulans in the drink mix) will likely see their numbers greatly diminished by the stomach’s acidic environment before they can reach the small intestines.35

Multi-GI 5 capsules protect their ingredients from stomach acid, allowing more of them to reach the intestines unharmed. As a result, you don’t need as high of a dose. How the company landed on cutting the dosage exactly in half is unclear, though it likely has to do with limitations on a given capsule’s capacity to hold ingredients and a desire to limit capsule count for customers’ convenience.

Because everyone’s stomach is different and may behave differently on one day than on others, it’s hard to say which route of administration would provide you with the most benefit. Therefore, we believe the choice comes down to convenience.

Who needs Multi-GI 5?

Plenty of people could stand to benefit from a probiotic regimen, and Multi-GI 5 offers as good a blend as most. You might consider adding probiotics to your routine if you suffer from any of the following symptoms:

• Digestive discomfort
• Bloating
• Gas
• Diarrhea or constipation
• Mood disorders
• Low energy
• Problems with weight control
• Poor sleep

While that may seem like a lot of potential symptoms connected with gut health, it's only a small part of the picture. Of course, there can be any number of causes for physical or emotional distress, so we encourage you to talk to your doctor before introducing probiotics as a potential treatment.

Our understanding of the microbiome is nascent at best. New research continues to reveal details and underscore its importance. Here are eight fast facts about the microbiome to keep you current on some of the basics.

1. The numbers of bacterial cells and human cells in your body are roughly the same.8
2. Bacteria in your gut can profoundly impact your mental health.9
3. You can test your microbiome with a convenient at-home kit to see your unique bacterial composition.
4. Lean and obese adults have very different microbiomes.10
5. The colon contains the densest colonies of bacteria in the body.11
6. The scientific community is beginning to regard the microbiome as an organ.12
7. Your microbiome can produce serotonin, essential for regulating mood and sleep.13
8. Some research connects antibiotic treatments in early childhood with later obesity (antibiotics being firebombs that kill off large swaths of the microbiome).14

Multi-GI 5 works by introducing a gut-healthy blend of ingredients to your system — not only probiotics but also prebiotic fiber to feed the good bacteria. Its ingredients fall into three categories, which we break down for you below.

Probiotic blend

Each probiotic in Multi-GI 5 has a role to play. Taken together, they address nearly everything that gut health experts say can be improved with the right microbial balance.

Gut Health Blend

It appears that Unify Health developed the Gut Health Blend in Multi-GI 5 to support the function of the Probiotic Blend. Its ingredients can reduce inflammation and digestive discomfort while creating an environment where probiotics can thrive.

Prebiotic fiber

Prebiotics exist to feed probiotics. They're fibrous and indigestible by the acid in the human stomach. That allows them to travel to the small intestines, where bacteria can use them as a food source.

What the Multi-GI 5 label refers to as a prebiotic blend is a single ingredient: oligosaccharides. These come in the form of inulin the company derives from chicory root. This is where consumers with FODMAP sensitivities need to be careful, as oligosaccharides can contribute to digestive issues.

Not every probiotic is created with the same goals in mind. There are two major kinds of probiotics — single-strain and multi-strain — with important distinctions between them.

Single-strain probiotics typically aren't a smart investment unless your doctor specifically recommends them. That's because there are so many strains of bacteria in your gut at any given time, and flooding that system with billions of one specific strain could create an unhelpful imbalance.

Multi-strain probiotics offer more potential benefits since different strains have specific effects on the body. The best way to know what strains your body might need is to get your microbiome tested and review the results with your doctor or a gastroenterologist.

Strain vs. genus and species

People often use the word "strains" to designate specific probiotic microorganisms. The problem here is that a probiotic strain is an extremely specific variant of broader probiotic categories.

Take a really popular probiotic like Lactobacillus rhamnosus, for example. That, in and of itself, isn't a strain. It's a genus (Lactobacillus) and a species (rhamnosus). There are multiple types of Lactobacillus rhamnosus, each with its own alphanumeric designation that signifies a strain.

Here's what the breakdown looks like for four strains related to two specific probiotic species:

While probiotics of the same genus and species often share some of the same effects, isolated strains may impart specific effects compared to other strains in the same genus and species. Therefore, knowing the impacts of a particular strain allows us to recommend one over another in certain instances. For example, L. rhamnosus LGG has a lot of data supporting its use as a treatment for acute diarrhea, especially in pediatric cases,25 while HN001 boasts data connecting it with positive outcomes among mothers suffering postnatal depression and anxiety.26

Multi-GI 5 contains L. rhamnosus, but the company lists neither the strain nor the quantity of the probiotic. That makes it extremely difficult to know whether it's right for you. Many probiotics producers provide strain-specific information, and we often encourage people to consider those products first, as we can more clearly understand the potential benefits and risks of each.

Our team reached out to Unify Health Labs for more information about specific strains in its products. The first customer service reps we spoke to couldn't help us; the information they had at their fingertips was the same that you could find on the Unify Health website. Then we got in touch with the product management team, but all they could do was refer us to the product development team, who has yet to return our request for information.

For the most part, Multi-GI 5 should be perfectly safe. Its probiotics rarely exhibit adverse effects in clinical trials. Its gut health ingredients are similarly safe. As your body gets used to probiotics, you may experience some GI discomfort, but this often fades as your body adapts — within a few weeks.

If you’re concerned about the adaptation process, you can titrate your dose. Start with half a scoop instead of the full scoop or a reduced number of capsules, and then gradually add more as you get comfortable with the product. As always, it is best to consult your healthcare provider before adding these supplements to your routine.

FODMAP concerns

The real safety concern with Multi-GI 5 comes from its inclusion of inulin as a prebiotic. By their very nature, most prebiotics pose mild physical dangers to anyone with FODMAP sensitivities.

FODMAP stands for “fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols.” It represents a class of foods that create significant digestive discomfort in certain individuals.27 Most people absorb these ingredients poorly, and that malabsorption creates bloating, gas, distention, and diarrhea for some.

Not all gut health supplements include prebiotics. Some stick to probiotics alone or probiotics combined with gut health components (like the other ingredients found in Multi-GI 5). If you know you have a FODMAP sensitivity, you may want to look elsewhere for probiotic support.

Some FODMAP elimination diets operate in phases that completely eliminate FODMAPs, then slowly reintegrate them before settling in a maintenance space. Once in the maintenance phase, a FODMAP-sensitive individual can consume FODMAPs in moderation and would be a better candidate for a supplement like Multi-GI 5.

If you aren't aware of your food sensitivities, we suggest you take a test to evaluate them or your current microbiome level. As an Innerbody reader, you can access exclusive discounts for at-home tests and determine which ones are right for you using our food sensitivity and microbiome testing guides.

Multi-GI 5 is available in one-, three-, and six-month supplies. Larger quantities offer greater savings. Here's how the price structure breaks down:

Compared to many other gut health supplements out there, Multi-GI 5 is a little expensive, even at the six-month tier. Companies in this price range often validate the cost with the inclusion of prebiotics and other useful ingredients, as Multi-GI 5 does, but you still might find equally effective supplements for less elsewhere.

You can also sign up for a free account with Unify before purchasing, which adds a significant discount to your purchase:

Unify Health accepts major credit cards and PayPal. Shipping costs $4.95, but orders above $50 qualify for free shipping — which would apply to any amount of Multi-GI 5 purchased without an account.

Of course, signing up for a free account knocks 28% off your purchase and drops you below the $50 threshold, so you’d have to pay for shipping. However, in our experience, we've noticed there's often a promotion going on that allows for free shipping despite the reduced cost.

The probiotics industry is enormous, and it's poised for continued growth in the years to come.28 For consumers, that means many options are available in addition to Multi-GI 5.

For now, let's go over some of the market's best probiotics that give Multi-GI 5 a run for its money.

Viome

Viome is our top purveyor of at-home microbiome tests, which provide comprehensive and incredibly accurate results along with actionable insights you can use to augment your diet and better your health. Based on a user’s test results, the company also offers fully customized probiotics, prebiotics, and nutritional supplements.

Custom probiotics, prebiotics, and supplements from Viome contain mixtures formulated from over 200 ingredients, including dozens of specific probiotic strains. There might be a little sticker shock if you only look at the cost of a microbiome test, but you get that test for free when you sign up for custom-tailored probiotics. These are fairly close in price to many off-the-shelf options, including Multi-GI 5. Viome uses that test to formulate your plan, and the subscription includes free yearly retesting, which allows the company to make appropriate changes to your probiotics as your microbiome evolves.

The prices below reflect a promotional discount you can get for the first six months of your Viome subscription with coupon code INNERBODY15:

Other companies offer at-home microbiome test kits, and some also have custom probiotic programs, but none of them compare to the depth of data and product quality Viome delivers. In our opinion, that makes Viome the best choice for anyone seriously looking to address health issues related to their digestion and microbiome.

However, if you’re merely curious to see if probiotics can help reduce a minor amount of bloating, Viome might be overkill, at least to start.

Dietary microbiome management

If you aren't interested in supplementation to address potential imbalances in your gut microbiome, there are food sources that can provide you with a slew of good bacteria. You won't have as much control over the exact probiotics you consume or the quantity, but you stand to encounter a greater diversity of strains than you would by taking a supplement alone.

Of course, foods containing probiotics are perfectly safe to consume if you're already taking such a supplement, so you can enjoy both simultaneously. But the quantity you'll get from a supplement is so great that the strains within would likely outcompete food-borne probiotics for nutrients, essentially nullifying their potential benefits.

Here's a quick look at some of the best foods to eat for probiotic support:

As a treatment, the food-based approach is ideal for people who have only the mildest digestive discomfort. Still, given the health benefits they offer, it’s wise for nearly everyone to incorporate more fermented foods into their diet.

While most probiotic supplements advertise the ability to regulate digestive issues like IBS, traveler's diarrhea, and intestinal perforation, many also provide benefits to systems outside the GI tract. There’s certainly a crossover for many strains that can improve health in the gut and elsewhere, but some companies have chosen to combine specific strains toward treating other aspects of wellness like respiratory or mental health.

ResBiotic

ResBiotic combines patented strains of L. plantarum, L. acidophilus, and L. rhamnosus, the species of which have been shown to affect the gut-lung axis.29

In addition to these probiotics, ResBiotic contains a botanical blend that includes:

• Vasaka leaf extract: In clinical trials, this extract has reduced pulmonary inflammation in rats with pulmonary fibrosis.30
• Holy basil leaf extract: Studies in rats have shown holy basil's ability to help stave off respiratory infections.31
• Turmeric root extract: In addition to many other benefits, turmeric appears to reduce pulmonary inflammation.32

Probiotics like those found in ReBiotic should have ancillary benefits for digestion in addition to their respiratory effects. Unfortunately, like Multi-GI 5, ResBiotic doesn’t provide CFU figures. It also uses proprietary probiotic strains, so research into their specific abilities is lacking.

Neuralli

There’s increasing evidence that gut health plays a significant role in mental health. This occurs on what's called the gut-brain axis, and studies have linked several probiotic strains to positive outcomes in cases of depression, anxiety, and Parkinson's disease.33

Neuralli employs a single probiotic strain — L. plantarum PS128 — that’s also sometimes called a psychobiotic thanks to its presumed role in the gut-brain axis. Despite being a patented probiotic strain, a fair amount of research has looked into its abilities, mostly in mice. Some studies show improvements in the symptoms of mice with Parkinson's disease, and others show its ability to increase the production of both serotonin and dopamine.34 (Serotonin and dopamine are neurotransmitters and the targets of SSRI and DNRI antidepressants, which help increase their levels in the body by inhibiting their reuptake.)

You might want to try Neuralli if you’re concerned about your mental health but wary of prescription treatments. The big problem with Neuralli is that it's significantly expensive, especially for a single-strain probiotic (around $165/month). Other strains of L. plantarum have been shown to work similarly on the gut-brain axis, as well, so this particular investment may be unnecessary.

Neuralli's case helps reinforce the need for companies to provide strain-specific probiotic data in their ingredient lists so that consumers can make informed choices about which probiotics may work for them.