Amy Myers MD vs Gundry MD: 3 Critical Differences That Reveal the Better Brand
By Rachel Monroe, Functional Medicine & Supplement Researcher · Rating: 4.7/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ · 10 min read
On The Myers Way® Protocol & Dr. Myers' Approach to Autoimmunity:
“The Autoimmune Solution is a medical breakthrough. Dr. Myers' protocol is a proven way to heal and reverse any illness on the autoimmune spectrum. This book revolutionizes the way we understand and treat autoimmunity and I am thrilled to be able to recommend it to my patients.”
— Dr. Mark Hyman, MD, Director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, 14-time New York Times bestselling author — from his published endorsement of Dr. Amy Myers' The Autoimmune Solution
On The Mission Behind Amy Myers MD® Supplements:
“Conventional Medicine Failed Me and It Is My Mission to Not Have It Fail You Too. I spent more than two decades working as a physician before launching Amy Myers MD®, an e-commerce wellness brand that reaches millions of people in more than 140 countries. I personally formulated over 75 products — because I needed to create the tools I wished existed when I was sick and no one could help me.”
— Dr. Amy Myers, MD, Founder & CEO of Amy Myers MD®, former ER physician and functional medicine pioneer — from her Take Back Your Health™ podcast mission statement (July 2026) and brand bio (amymyersmd.com)
Two Physician-Founded Brands. Very Different Missions.
When people ask me which functional medicine supplement brand to choose, two names come up more than any others: Amy Myers MD and Gundry MD. Both are physician-founded. Both have best-selling books. Both have passionate customer bases. And both charge premium prices for supplements that go beyond what you'd find at a drugstore. The comparison seems natural on the surface.
But beneath the surface, these two brands are built on fundamentally different assumptions about what causes chronic illness and how to address it. Amy Myers MD is built on gut healing and autoimmune reversal through The Myers Way® protocol. Gundry MD is built on lectin-avoidance, polyphenol supplementation, and cardiovascular longevity through The Plant Paradox approach. Understanding that difference — and not just comparing product labels — is the only way to make a genuinely informed choice between them. That's what this comparison does.
Brand Overview: Amy Myers MD vs Gundry MD
🏥 Amy Myers MD
- Founder: Dr. Amy Myers, MD (emergency medicine + IFM-certified)
- Personal condition: Graves' disease — healed through functional medicine
- Core protocol: The Myers Way® — 4 pillars: gut, toxins, infections, stress
- Primary focus: Leaky gut, autoimmunity, thyroid disorders
- Products: 75+ physician-formulated supplements
- Books: The Autoimmune Solution + The Thyroid Connection (NYT bestsellers)
- Quality: GMP-certified + third-party tested
- Founded: 2017, Austin TX
🏥 Gundry MD
- Founder: Dr. Steven Gundry, MD (cardiothoracic surgeon)
- Personal condition: Overweight — transformed health through lectin-free diet
- Core protocol: The Plant Paradox — lectin-avoidance + polyphenols
- Primary focus: Anti-aging, cardiovascular health, lectin-free gut support
- Products: 50+ supplements, foods, skincare
- Books: The Plant Paradox series, The Longevity Paradox
- Quality: GMP-certified facility; third-party testing less prominently disclosed
- Founded: ~2016, Agoura Health Products LLC, California
3 Critical Differences That Reveal the Better Brand
① The Founder's Origin Story Changes Everything About the Products
This is not a superficial comparison point. The reason both brands exist — and therefore the reason every product in both catalogues was formulated — traces back to a single personal experience for each founder. Understanding the origin story tells you more about what the products are actually built for than any ingredient list.
Amy Myers MD — Founded on Autoimmune Disease Failure
Dr. Amy Myers was diagnosed with Graves' disease — an autoimmune thyroid condition — during her second year of medical school. She underwent the standard of care: suppressive medication followed by radioactive iodine ablation. The thyroid was destroyed. The autoimmune dysfunction wasn't. She continued experiencing symptoms that conventional medicine classified as “managed” but that she experienced as ongoing dysfunction. This failure — from inside the medical system she was training to join — became the entire foundation of her practice, her books, and every product she formulated. Every supplement in the Amy Myers MD line exists because Dr. Myers needed to solve a problem that conventional medicine told her was already solved. The gut-healing protocol, the autoimmune protocol, the thyroid support stack — all of it comes from two decades of clinical work built on that origin experience.
Gundry MD — Founded on Dietary Transformation
Dr. Steven Gundry's origin story is a personal health transformation — he was overweight, had metabolic markers consistent with cardiovascular risk, and resolved them by modifying his diet to reduce lectin-containing foods and increase polyphenol-rich plants. This transformation, documented in his books starting with *The Plant Paradox*, became the foundation of the Gundry MD brand. The supplements are primarily designed to support lectin-avoidance eating, provide polyphenols in supplemental form, and support cardiovascular and longevity goals. This is a genuinely useful framework for a subset of people — but it is not the same framework as gut-healing and autoimmune reversal, and the product formulations reflect that difference in meaningful ways.
The practical implication: If your health goal involves autoimmune disease, thyroid dysfunction, or leaky gut healing, Amy Myers MD was literally built for you. If your goal involves cardiovascular health, anti-aging, or lectin-avoidance eating, Gundry MD was built for you. Choosing the wrong brand for your goal is like choosing the right doctor in the wrong specialty — both may be excellent; neither is optimal for the other's problem.
⚖️ Edge for autoimmune/thyroid/gut healing: Amy Myers MD — built from lived autoimmune experience. Edge for cardiovascular/anti-aging/lectin: Gundry MD.
② Protocol Depth vs Product Breadth — A Fundamental Structural Difference
Both brands sell supplements. But the relationship between those supplements is fundamentally different — and that relationship determines whether you're buying a coherent healing protocol or a collection of individual products.
Amy Myers MD — Products as Protocol
The Myers Way® organizes every product into a specific role within a four-pillar protocol: (1) Heal the gut — Leaky Gut Revive, Complete Enzymes, Probiotics, Collagen Protein. (2) Reduce toxic burden — Liver Support, Heavy Metal Detox, Charcoal supplements. (3) Address infections — Microb-Clear, Candifense, Oregano capsules. (4) Relieve stress — Adrenal Support, Magnesium, sleep support formulas. This structure means that when a customer reads *The Autoimmune Solution* and wants to implement the protocol, there's a specific, coherent set of supplements mapped to each pillar. The products aren't designed to be bought randomly — they're designed to be implemented as a system.
Gundry MD — Products Alongside a Dietary Protocol
Gundry MD supplements are designed to complement the lectin-free dietary protocol described in *The Plant Paradox* — but the supplements are positioned more as enhancement tools than as a coordinated healing protocol. Bio Complete 3 (prebiotic + probiotic + postbiotic) is the flagship gut support product. Total Restore is designed to support gut lining integrity with glutamine, N-acetyl glucosamine, and zinc. Vital Reds and Primal Plants provide polyphenol concentrates. These are well-formulated products, but they don't map as tightly to a four-pillar therapeutic protocol as the Amy Myers MD line does. You can use one Gundry MD product effectively without the others; the Amy Myers MD gut-healing stack is explicitly designed as a multi-product synergistic system.
⚖️ Edge: Amy Myers MD — for buyers who want a coordinated, protocol-based supplement approach to chronic illness. Gundry MD for buyers who want individual products to enhance a dietary approach.
③ Scientific Controversy — One Brand Has It More Than the Other
This is the difference that most favorable comparisons skip. An honest comparison requires addressing it directly.
Amy Myers MD — Functional Medicine Consensus
The core claims of The Myers Way® — that gut permeability contributes to autoimmune dysfunction, that removing dietary inflammatory triggers reduces autoimmune flares, that targeted nutritional supplementation can support gut lining repair — are aligned with the emerging scientific consensus in functional medicine and gastroenterology. The role of intestinal permeability in autoimmunity is the subject of serious peer-reviewed research (Alessio Fasano's work on zonulin and leaky gut, for example). Dr. Myers' approach may be more aggressive in its dietary restriction than mainstream gastroenterology recommends, and functional medicine writ large carries criticisms about the evidence base for some protocols — but the core mechanisms she describes are scientifically recognized and actively researched.
Gundry MD — The Lectin Controversy
Gundry MD's central claim — that dietary lectins are a primary driver of chronic disease and should be broadly avoided — is contested by a meaningful portion of the nutrition science community. Lectins exist and can be problematic in raw or improperly prepared forms; this is not disputed. But the claim that properly cooked legumes, whole grains, and tomatoes are harmful to most people due to lectin content is not supported by large-scale epidemiological evidence, and the foods Gundry recommends avoiding are the same foods that appear repeatedly in the highest-longevity populations globally. Media Bias Fact Check has rated the Gundry MD website as “Pseudoscience” based on some exaggerated health claims. Dr. Gundry's credentials are real and his clinical observations are genuine — but the scientific support for his core theory is weaker than the scientific support for Amy Myers MD's core mechanisms.
This is a genuine differentiator, not a marketing point. For buyers who prioritize scientific rigor and peer-reviewed consensus behind their supplement choices, Amy Myers MD's core mechanisms are better supported by existing research than Gundry MD's lectin-avoidance theory.
⚖️ Edge: Amy Myers MD — core protocol mechanisms are more aligned with scientific consensus. Gundry MD's lectin theory is more contested.
Root-cause functional medicine — built by someone who needed it first.
Amy Myers MD — The Myers Way® protocol for gut health, autoimmunity, and thyroid. 75+ physician-formulated supplements. GMP-certified, third-party tested. amymyersmd.com.
Full Head-to-Head Comparison
| Category | Amy Myers MD | Gundry MD | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Founder credentials | MD (emergency) + IFM-certified | MD (cardiothoracic surgery) | Tie (both MDs) |
| Personal health journey | Autoimmune disease (Graves') | Obesity / metabolic health | Amy MD (for autoimmune) |
| Core protocol | The Myers Way® (4 pillars) | Plant Paradox (lectin-free) | Amy MD (more structured) |
| Primary health focus | Gut, autoimmunity, thyroid | Cardiovascular, anti-aging, lectin | Depends on your goal |
| Scientific consensus alignment | Strong (gut permeability research) | Contested (lectin theory) | Amy MD |
| Protocol coherence | Integrated 4-pillar system | Dietary + individual supplements | Amy MD |
| Formulation transparency | Full amino acid profiles disclosed | Proprietary blends some products | Amy MD |
| 3rd-party testing disclosure | GMP + 3rd-party prominently disclosed | GMP facility; testing less prominent | Amy MD |
| Clean formulation (GF/DF/SF) | GF / DF / SF across most products | GF / SF / dairy-free in most | Tie |
| Product range | 75+ supplements | 50+ supplements + foods + skincare | Gundry MD (broader) |
| Autoimmune support | Primary focus, specific protocol | Partial (gut/inflammation angle) | Amy MD |
| Cardiovascular support | Indirect (gut-heart axis) | Primary focus (CoQ10, omega-3, polyphenols) | Gundry MD |
| Educational content depth | Deep (2 NYT books + podcast) | Deep (Plant Paradox series + podcast) | Tie |
| Price range (supplements) | $30–$75/product | $35–$80/product | Comparable |
Flagship Products: Side by Side
🧬 Gut Health Flagship
Amy Myers MD: Leaky Gut Revive® + Complete Enzymes + Probiotics
3-product coordinated stack: L-glutamine + marshmallow root + aloe (gut lining repair) + 19-enzyme full-spectrum digestion support + 30B/100B CFU probiotics. Protocol-integrated, sequential.
Gundry MD: Bio Complete 3
Single product: prebiotic (sunfiber) + probiotic (Bacillus coagulans) + postbiotic (tributyrin). Comprehensive single-capsule gut support. Well-reviewed, simpler commitment.
🧬 Gut Lining Repair
Amy Myers MD: Leaky Gut Revive®
L-glutamine 3,000mg + arabinogalactan + aloe vera + deglycyrrhizinated licorice root + slippery elm + marshmallow root. Targeted gut lining repair formula.
Gundry MD: Total Restore
L-glutamine + N-acetyl glucosamine + zinc + magnesium + grape seed extract + 15 other gut-support ingredients. Broader ingredient list but proprietary blend doses not fully disclosed.
🧬 Protein / Collagen
Amy Myers MD: Collagen Protein
Hydrolyzed Type I & III bovine collagen, 11g/serving, grass-fed. Single ingredient. Full amino acid profile disclosed. Glycine 2,470mg per serving.
Gundry MD: Vital Reds / Primal Plants
Polyphenol-focused powders rather than collagen protein. Different category — cardiovascular/energy support vs structural gut/skin/hair protein supplementation.
Where Each Brand Wins
✅ Amy Myers MD wins on:
- Autoimmune disease protocol depth
- Thyroid disorder support
- Leaky gut healing stack
- Scientific consensus alignment
- Formulation transparency (full label disclosure)
- Protocol coherence (products designed as a system)
- Founder's lived autoimmune experience
✅ Gundry MD wins on:
- Cardiovascular supplement support
- Polyphenol concentration products
- Broader product ecosystem (foods + skincare)
- Bio Complete 3 (gut support in one product)
- Anti-aging and longevity focus
- More frequent promotional pricing
Where Each Brand Falls Short
⚠️ Amy Myers MD falls short on:
- Price — premium with limited discounting
- Full protocol requires dietary commitment
- No longer has clinical arm (no consultations)
- Narrow focus — less relevant for cardiovascular/performance goals
⚠️ Gundry MD falls short on:
- Lectin theory contested by mainstream nutrition science
- Some proprietary blends with undisclosed doses
- Third-party testing less prominently disclosed
- Lacks dedicated autoimmune or thyroid protocol
Choose Amy Myers MD If…
- You have an autoimmune condition — Hashimoto's, Graves', lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, IBD, MS — and want a protocol designed by someone who healed from autoimmunity themselves.
- You have a thyroid disorder — hypothyroid, hyperthyroid, or subclinical. Dr. Myers' second NYT bestseller *The Thyroid Connection* is the most protocol-specific thyroid functional medicine resource in the supplement brand space.
- You have persistent gut symptoms — leaky gut, SIBO, Candida, food sensitivities — that haven't resolved with general probiotics or dietary changes. The Myers Way® gut-healing stack is built for this.
- You want scientific alignment and protocol coherence — the core mechanisms of The Myers Way® are grounded in peer-reviewed gut permeability and autoimmune research. Available at amymyersmd.com.
Choose Gundry MD If…
- Cardiovascular health is your primary supplement goal — CoQ10, omega-3 alternatives, polyphenol concentration, and heart health support are Dr. Gundry's clinical specialty area and the focus of Gundry MD's strongest products.
- You follow or want to follow a lectin-free diet — the Gundry MD supplements are specifically designed to complement The Plant Paradox eating approach.
- You want a simpler supplement commitment — Bio Complete 3 (single product, covers prebiotic + probiotic + postbiotic) is a more contained gut-health commitment than the full Myers Way® stack.
- Anti-aging and longevity are your primary goals — Dr. Gundry's research focus on polyphenols, mitochondrial health, and cardiovascular longevity makes Gundry MD the stronger choice for this orientation.
⭐ Final Verdict: Amy Myers MD vs Gundry MD
Three critical differences, and the conclusion is the same across all three: Amy Myers MD is the better brand for gut healing, autoimmunity, and thyroid conditions. Gundry MD is the better brand for cardiovascular health, polyphenol supplementation, and lectin-avoidance eating. Neither brand is better in the abstract — the right choice is entirely determined by your health focus.
For the specific audience of people dealing with chronic gut symptoms, autoimmune conditions, or thyroid dysfunction — which is the majority of people who arrive at both brands after a long search for answers — Amy Myers MD is the more directly relevant choice. The protocol is more coherent, the science behind it is more robust, the formulation transparency is higher, and the founder's personal autoimmune experience ensures that the products are built for the problem rather than near the problem.
For autoimmune, gut, thyroid: Amy Myers MD at amymyersmd.com. For cardiovascular, anti-aging, lectin: Gundry MD.
Protocol built by someone who healed from autoimmune disease. Not near it — from it.
Amy Myers MD — The Myers Way® 4-pillar protocol for gut, autoimmune, and thyroid. 75+ physician-formulated, GMP-certified, third-party tested supplements. amymyersmd.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Amy Myers MD better than Gundry MD?
For autoimmune disease, thyroid disorders, and gut healing: Amy Myers MD. For cardiovascular health, anti-aging, and lectin-avoidance: Gundry MD. Neither is universally better — the right choice is determined by your health goal.
What is the difference between Amy Myers MD and Gundry MD?
3 critical differences: (1) Protocol — Amy Myers: The Myers Way® (gut/autoimmune/thyroid); Gundry: Plant Paradox (lectin-free/cardiovascular). (2) Scientific basis — Amy Myers' core mechanisms are better supported by peer-reviewed research. (3) Formulation transparency — Amy Myers MD discloses full ingredient dosing; Gundry MD uses some proprietary blends.
Does Dr. Amy Myers have medical credentials?
Yes — MD from LSU Health Science Center (2005), emergency medicine residency at University of Maryland Medical Center, IFM-certified functional medicine physician. 2x NYT bestselling author, 2024 Stevie Award winner.
Is Dr. Gundry MD a real doctor?
Yes — board-certified cardiothoracic surgeon, former head of cardiothoracic surgery at Loma Linda University. His lectin-avoidance theory is more contested than Amy Myers MD's gut permeability research, but his credentials are genuine.
Which brand is better for autoimmune disease?
Amy Myers MD — built by someone who healed from autoimmune disease (Graves'), with a specific 4-pillar protocol, dedicated supplement stacks, and two NYT books focused on autoimmune reversal. There is no direct equivalent in Gundry MD's product line.
Which is better for gut health?
Amy Myers MD for protocol-integrated gut healing (leaky gut, SIBO, Candida, autoimmune gut). Gundry MD Bio Complete 3 for simpler, single-product gut support (prebiotic + probiotic + postbiotic).
Are Gundry MD supplements third-party tested?
Manufactured in GMP-certified facilities, but third-party testing specifics are less prominently disclosed than Amy Myers MD's documentation. Buyers prioritizing transparent testing should note this difference.
Can I take Amy Myers MD and Gundry MD supplements together?
No direct contraindications, but both brands are built around distinct dietary protocols. Mixing stacks without following either protocol consistently may reduce efficacy of both. Identify your primary health goal and choose the corresponding protocol. Amy Myers MD available at amymyersmd.com →
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