| Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... |
Table of Contents
GLP1 Probiotics Review: Great For Appetite, Weight, and Gut Health (2026 Update)
Posted by Heidi Moretti, MS, RD, CLT — Updated for 2026 with new clinical research, a note on product availability, and what I’m taking now
GLP1 and semaglutide drugs are a household name at this point thanks to the constant advertising for Type 2 diabetes and weight-loss medications. Along with the popularity of GLP1 drugs has come a whole host of concerns regarding their safety.
So when GLP1 probiotics came onto the market, it was a breath of fresh air for many people, because these probiotics support the body’s own ability to produce GLP-1 instead of delivering a heavy pharmaceutical dose of the hormone. In no other scenario are drugs that drastically override natural hormone signaling considered a first-line idea.
GLP1 probiotics aren’t scary at all, unlike the injectable drugs can be. Probiotics support many aspects of health at once — not just one hormone pathway.
In this updated post, you’ll learn what GLP1 is, how to naturally and safely increase it through diet, the benefits of GLP1 probiotics, potential side effects, the newest 2026 clinical research on Akkermansia muciniphila, where to buy them, and what to realistically expect. I’m also sharing my honest, non-sponsored review of Pendulum Metabolic Daily Pro — the GLP1 probiotic I tried and reported on a while back, including the stool test that later confirmed what was actually happening in my gut — along with a note on why I’ve recently switched to Codeage GLP1 Probiotic instead.
Table of Contents
- What is GLP1?
- What Foods Help Increase GLP1?
- How to Naturally Increase GLP1
- How Do GLP1 Probiotics Work?
- New 2026 Research on Akkermansia and Weight Maintenance
- Are GLP1 Probiotics Safe?
- GLP1 Probiotics: My Original Review + What I’m Taking Now
- Where to Buy GLP1 Probiotics
- GLP1 Probiotics Ratings
- Other GLP1 Probiotic Brands
- Frequently Asked Questions
What is GLP1?
GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide 1) is a hormone made by the gut in response to food intake. This hormone signals the brain that you’re full and also slows stomach emptying. It affects other hormones too — for one, it increases insulin production.
After a meal, GLP-1 levels naturally decline, but depending on what you eat, they can stay elevated for different lengths of time. Certain herbs also stimulate GLP-1 production.
There’s a huge and growing body of research on how foods, herbs, and nutrients stimulate GLP-1 production and thereby reduce appetite. For a lot of people, this is a safer, more sustainable route than a prescription drug pushed by pharmaceutical advertising.
Simplified pathway: fiber and food feed keystone gut bacteria, which produce GLP-1 and butyrate to signal fullness to the brain.
What Foods Help Increase GLP1?
Protein plays a huge role in increasing GLP-1. This is why people eating a lower-carbohydrate, higher-protein diet tend to lose weight more readily than those eating a high-carbohydrate diet. Fiber also stimulates GLP-1 production, so whole plant foods control appetite better than processed foods do.
Some of the herbs and herbal extracts that increase GLP-1 include berberine, apigenin, quercetin, turmeric, and ginseng.
In contrast, GLP-1 pharmaceutical drugs are GLP-1 agonists — they mimic GLP-1 in the body, lowering glucose and raising insulin. But their side effects can be severe, as you’ve probably heard on the commercials.
Not so with herbs, foods, and probiotics. Some strains of probiotics — live, beneficial bacteria — help increase GLP-1 levels effectively, and these probiotics can support many aspects of metabolism beyond what weight-loss drugs target.
Find Akkermansia Pro GLP-1 Probiotic™ on Fullscript
How to Naturally Increase GLP1
Eating food in general increases GLP-1 production, but some foods help more than others.
Protein is critical for reducing appetite because dietary proteins and peptides are potent GLP-1 secretagogues — they trigger the body to release GLP-1. Whey protein is the type most used in human studies and has a strong GLP-1-stimulating effect, along with insulinotropic and glucose-lowering benefits. Protein also increases the survival of active GLP-1 by inhibiting DPP-4 activity in the plasma.
Dietary fat also helps increase GLP-1 — part of why lower-carb diets tend to be more effective for weight loss. Dietary fat increases GLP-1 production, especially omega-3 fatty acids.
Spices and herbs can help too:
- Turmeric, containing curcumin, stimulates GLP-1 production in various studies.
- Ginseng stimulates GLP-1 secretion.
- Celery and chamomile (apigenin) increase plasma GLP-1.
- Resveratrol supports GLP-1 pathways.
- Berberine stimulates GLP-1 production and is often called “herbal Ozempic,” without the gut complications of the drug.
- Ceylon cinnamon increases GLP-1 while also decreasing fasting insulin.
Probiotics and butyrate: the stimulation of GLP-1 secretion by butyrate via probiotics gives a plausible mechanism for how probiotics affect appetite and weight control. Let’s dig into that next.
The main natural levers covered in this article for supporting GLP-1 production — protein, fiber, dietary fat, herbs/spices, and probiotics & postbiotics. Shown as categories, not a proportional or statistical breakdown.
How Do GLP1 Probiotics Work?
All probiotics offer system-wide benefits. The newer class geared toward Type 2 diabetes, energy, and weight management contains specific strains that help rebalance the gut, which can enhance metabolism, improve immunity, and support healthy weight loss.
The company describes Pendulum Metabolic Daily Pro this way: it’s formulated with Akkermansia muciniphila as a live, multi-strain probiotic designed to replenish the gut microbiome, optimize metabolism, and support a healthy weight.
The formula of Pendulum Metabolic Daily Pro contained:
Probiotic blend (1 billion AFU) 47mg:
- Clostridium butyricum WB-STR-0006
- Clostridium beijerinckii WB-STR-0005
- Bifidobacterium infantis
- Anaerobutyricum hallii WB-STR-0008
- Akkermansia muciniphila WB-STR-0001
Anaerobic, spore-forming; may dampen inflammation, support NAFLD-related liver function, and prevent antibiotic-associated diarrhea in children. Helps produce butyrate.
Used to help treat infant diarrhea and reduce IBS symptoms. May support mood, though it may worsen methane-predominant SIBO symptoms in some people.
Spore-forming, soil-based strain studied for Type 2 diabetes management and metabolic support.
A butyrate producer and cross-feeder that supports overall microbiome balance and metabolic health.
The keystone strain — improves glucose and fat metabolism, is linked to reduced obesity risk, and may reduce body weight and insulin levels. Astaxanthin and intermittent fasting also help increase Akkermansia naturally.
This probiotic combination has been shown to improve glucose tolerance and long-term glycemic control (a 0.6% drop in hemoglobin A1C) with no side effects, when added to standard metformin treatment over 12 weeks. A separate study in people with Type 2 diabetes using the same strains found similar results — a 0.6% reduction in hemoglobin A1C and improved glucose area under the curve.
Probiotics in general are considered helpful for people with metabolic syndrome.
New 2026 Research: Akkermansia and Weight-Loss Maintenance
The biggest update since this post was first published
A 2026 randomized, placebo-controlled trial published in Nature Medicine gave 90 adults with overweight or obesity an 8-week low-calorie diet to lose at least 8% of body weight, then followed them for 24 weeks on a normal, unrestricted diet — with half taking daily pasteurized Akkermansia muciniphila and half taking a placebo. The Akkermansia group regained significantly less weight over the maintenance period than the placebo group, and even showed a greater net weight loss from baseline by the end of the study, with no treatment-related serious side effects (Mount et al., Nature Medicine, 2026).
What’s especially interesting: the benefit was strongest in people who started with lower natural Akkermansia levels — meaning this strain may matter most for the people whose guts need it most. This lines up with what I saw on my own stool test, below.
A separate 2026 case report published in Frontiers in Endocrinology described a Pendulum Glucose Control user with type 2 diabetes and hypertension seeing a 1.3% drop in hemoglobin A1C attributed to the probiotic, and a small clinical trial in athletes found that a three-strain blend including Akkermansia and C. butyricum improved self-reported fatigue and bloating, likely tied to stronger gut barrier integrity and increased short-chain fatty acid production.
The takeaway for 2026: Akkermansia muciniphila has moved from “promising preclinical strain” to a genuinely studied ingredient with human RCT data behind it specifically for weight regain prevention — which is exactly the problem so many people run into after stopping a GLP-1 drug or finishing a diet.
Are GLP1 Probiotics Safe?
The probiotic strains in Pendulum’s lines are generally recognized as safe (GRAS). They may even help reduce the chances of antibiotic resistance. As always, check with your healthcare provider before starting a new supplement. People with severe immune compromise should avoid probiotics without medical guidance, and those with methane-predominant SIBO may notice an increase in digestive symptoms.
GLP1 Probiotics: My Original Review + What I’m Taking Now
Note: this review reflects my experience with Pendulum Metabolic Daily Pro from a while back. That specific product has since been discontinued — see my current pick further down.
At first I wasn’t expecting much, because I’m a 51-year-old woman going through perimenopause — notoriously one of the hardest times of life to manage weight. My weight was still in a healthy range, but the scale had been slowly creeping up over the previous year despite my usual efforts with food and exercise. Some of that was muscle, but I was determined not to let the middle-age “spread” win. That’s why I started taking Pendulum’s Metabolic Daily Pro.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the scale go down 2 pounds in the first two days, even during my PMS week. By day 5, I noticed I wasn’t very hungry for lunch or dinner. By day 6, I was down 4 pounds — again, during PMS, which usually works against me on the scale.
After staying consistent with Metabolic Daily Pro for about three months, I settled in at a total of about 5 pounds lost and kept off — not dramatic, but meaningful, sustainable, and, importantly, achieved without dieting harder or white-knuckling my appetite. My hunger cues were calmer and my portions were naturally smaller, without having to fight my body to get there.
The part that really validated this for me, though, was clinical rather than anecdotal: around that same time, I repeated my stool testing as part of my ongoing gut health monitoring, and my Akkermansia muciniphila levels came back significantly increased — a genuinely great abundance compared to my prior baseline. Given that the 2026 Nature Medicine trial found the biggest benefit in people who started with lower Akkermansia, seeing my own levels rise that much after months of supplementation was exactly the kind of “test, not guess” confirmation I look for before I trust a supplement long-term.
My personal timeline from that original review of Pendulum Metabolic Daily Pro: weight loss plus a confirmed rise in Akkermansia on stool testing.
Overall, I was highly pleased with this probiotic at the time — it’s hard to impress me when it comes to weight management, and this did. The only mild downside: if I ate too close to bedtime, I’d sometimes feel a slight twinge of stomach discomfort, but it passed and didn’t affect my sleep. My digestion was regular, my mood was good, and I had none of the harsh side effects that GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Mounjaro, and Wegovy can carry — side effects I’ve watched a number of my own clients struggle with.
I also hated to admit it, but that probiotic outperformed every other dietary strategy I’d personally tried for weight management during perimenopause, a life stage where weight loss is famously difficult. Between the scale, the appetite change, and the lab-confirmed Akkermansia growth, it was one of the few supplements I felt comfortable calling a genuine win.
What I’m recommending now that Pendulum is gone
Since I originally wrote this review, Pendulum Metabolic Daily Pro has been discontinued and is no longer available for purchase. I don’t want to recommend something you can’t actually buy, so here’s what I’m pointing people to instead — one professional-grade option and one easy over-the-counter option:
Akkermansia Pro GLP-1 Probiotic™ (Fullscript, practitioner-grade): a once-daily, shelf-stable formula pairing live Akkermansia muciniphila (strain TA09, 500 million AFU) with the heat-treated postbiotic Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis CECT 8145, also known as BPL1. Unlike Pendulum’s blend, this one leans on a clinically studied postbiotic rather than additional live strains — a randomized controlled trial of 135 adults with abdominal obesity found that CECT 8145 reduced waist circumference, waist-to-height ratio, and BMI compared to placebo over three months. Akkermansia still does the heavy lifting on gut barrier integrity and natural GLP-1 support, while BPL1 adds a second, separately researched mechanism for abdominal fat and blood sugar. It’s shelf-stable thanks to oxygen-free processing, which solves one of the biggest practical headaches with Akkermansia supplements (the strain is notoriously oxygen-sensitive and hard to keep alive in a capsule).
Codeage GLP1 Probiotic (Amazon, over-the-counter): what I’m personally taking day to day for convenience, since it’s readily available without going through a practitioner dispensary and still includes Akkermansia muciniphila alongside Clostridium and Bifidobacterium strains — the same strain family behind the results I originally saw with Pendulum.
In short, probiotics built around Akkermansia muciniphila and related strains — whether paired with other live strains or with a researched postbiotic like BPL1 — represent one of the more promising frontiers in weight management, supported now by real human trial data, not just theory, even as individual product lines like Pendulum’s come and go.
Where to Buy GLP1 Probiotics
Update: Pendulum Metabolic Daily Pro, the product reviewed above, has been discontinued and is no longer available through Fullscript, Amazon, or any other retailer as of this update. In its place, I’m now recommending Akkermansia Pro GLP-1 Probiotic™ on Fullscript as the professional-grade option, or Codeage GLP1 Probiotic on Amazon as an easy over-the-counter alternative.
Beyond these two, GLP1-focused probiotic blends in general vary in where you can buy them. Professional-strength formulas are sometimes only available through a healthcare provider, while consumer versions are typically sold directly on Amazon or the manufacturer’s own site.
GLP1 Probiotics Ratings
I’m not the only one who finds these probiotics effective. Almost all reviewers report a boost in energy and metabolism, along with improved gut function and no notable downsides — a strong contrast to the side-effect profile of injectable GLP-1 drugs.
Other GLP1 Probiotic Brands
Pendulum Metabolic Daily Pro, which I reviewed above, was the brand I originally recommended most — but since it’s been discontinued, I’m now pointing people to Akkermansia Pro GLP-1 Probiotic™ for a practitioner-grade option built around Akkermansia and the clinically studied BPL1 postbiotic, or Codeage GLP1 Probiotic for an accessible over-the-counter alternative with a similar Akkermansia-forward strain profile. Be aware that many other probiotics and prebiotics on the market are marketed similarly but aren’t formulated the same way, and I haven’t experienced comparable benefits from other brands. Prebiotics and probiotics are different but can work well together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do GLP1 probiotics actually work like Ozempic?
No — GLP1 probiotics don’t deliver a pharmaceutical dose of GLP-1 the way Ozempic, Wegovy, or Mounjaro do. Instead, strains like Akkermansia muciniphila and Clostridium butyricum support your gut’s own natural GLP-1 and butyrate production. The effect is gentler and slower than a GLP-1 drug, but it also comes without the severe side effects associated with those medications.
How long did it take to see results in my original review?
In my own experience with Pendulum Metabolic Daily Pro, appetite changes started within 5 to 6 days, with early scale movement in the first week. Meaningful, sustained weight loss and gut microbiome changes — like an increase in Akkermansia muciniphila — took closer to 90 days of consistent daily use.
What does the newest research say about Akkermansia muciniphila and weight loss?
A 2026 randomized controlled trial published in Nature Medicine found that pasteurized Akkermansia muciniphila significantly reduced weight regain after a low-calorie diet compared to placebo, with the strongest benefit in people who started with lower natural Akkermansia levels.
Are GLP1 probiotics safe to take long-term?
The strains used in Pendulum’s products are generally recognized as safe (GRAS). Still, anyone with severe immune compromise or methane-predominant SIBO should talk with their healthcare provider before starting, since probiotics can occasionally worsen SIBO symptoms in that specific case.
Where can I buy Pendulum Metabolic Daily Pro?
Pendulum Metabolic Daily Pro has been discontinued and is no longer available for purchase. I now recommend Akkermansia Pro GLP-1 Probiotic™, a practitioner-grade Akkermansia plus BPL1 postbiotic formula available through Fullscript, or Codeage GLP1 Probiotic on Amazon, which I’m personally taking now.
Can I test whether GLP1 probiotics are actually changing my gut bacteria?
Yes — a comprehensive stool test can measure your Akkermansia muciniphila levels along with other key strains before and after supplementation, which is exactly how I confirmed my own results rather than relying on the scale alone.
What is BPL1 and how is it different from a probiotic?
BPL1 (Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis CECT 8145) is a postbiotic — meaning the bacteria are heat-treated and no longer alive, but their components still confer a benefit. A randomized controlled trial of 135 adults with abdominal obesity found that CECT 8145 reduced waist circumference, waist-to-height ratio, and BMI compared to placebo. In Akkermansia Pro GLP-1 Probiotic™, it’s paired with live Akkermansia muciniphila to target both gut barrier support and abdominal fat through two separately researched mechanisms.
Disclaimer – The information contained on this blog, website, and related content is of a general nature and not regulated by the FDA. It is not intended to treat, diagnose, or give specific medical advice. While all content is written by a registered dietitian and strives to provide accurate, science-based information, your specific health needs may or may not apply to the content on this website. All content is copyrighted and must be used only with permission and citation to thehealthyrd.com.
