Editorial Policy

How we source claims

Health content is the kind where being wrong causes harm. We work to a hierarchy of evidence and we tell you where a claim sits within it rather than flattening everything into "studies show".

1. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses — Cochrane and equivalent. The strongest tier, because they pool all the trials and weigh them by quality.
2. Large randomised controlled trials published in major peer-reviewed journals.
3. Guidance from national health bodies — the NIH and its institutes, the FDA, and established clinical centers such as Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic.
4. Professional associations — for example the American Urological Association.

Every source we rely on is named in the article and linked so you can read it yourself. If we cannot source a figure, we do not publish the figure.

What we will not cite

• The manufacturer's own sales page as evidence that a product works.
• Press releases distributed through newswires and republished by financial sites. These are paid placements, not journalism.
• Other affiliate sites. Citing a competitor's summary of a study is not sourcing; it is repetition.
• Testimonials as evidence of effectiveness. They may be sincere and still tell you nothing about cause.

How we assess supplements

Product assessments run against fixed criteria, applied the same way to every product regardless of what it pays.

• Disclosed doses. If the label hides amounts behind a proprietary blend, the product cannot be assessed — by us or by your pharmacist — and we say so.
• Evidence for the actual ingredients, at the doses disclosed, from independent research rather than manufacturer-funded studies.
• Verified refund terms. We check the checkout page rather than the sales page, because the two frequently disagree.
• Seller identity and clone risk. Several products in this category have dozens of imitation "official" sites. We say when that is the case.
• Claim compliance. Products claiming to treat, cure or prevent disease are making claims a supplement is not permitted to make, and we flag it.

Language we do not use

Certain phrases are either false or engineered to bypass judgement, so they do not appear here in our own voice:

• "FDA-approved" about a supplement. The FDA does not approve dietary supplements. The accurate phrasing is that a product is made in an FDA-registered facility, which is a statement about the building, not the contents.
• "Cure", "guaranteed", "miracle", "breakthrough" — none of which belong in health writing.
• "Clinically proven" as a synonym for "a study exists". We describe what the study was and what it found.
• Manufactured scarcity — countdown timers, stock warnings, expiring prices.

Who writes, and what they are qualified to say

Evidence articles are written by our editorial team, working from the sources listed above. First-person articles are written by a contributor who is living with these symptoms and who writes under a declared pen name, explained in full on our about page.

He is not a clinician and does not present himself as one. His articles describe his own experience; they do not offer clinical guidance. Where the two kinds of article meet, the evidence claims come from the sources, not from anyone's personal account.

Updates and freshness

Medical guidance changes, offers change, and refund terms change. Articles carry a published date and an updated date, and the updated date only moves when the content genuinely changed — never to fake freshness.

We review product-related pages periodically because prices, guarantee windows and seller details move frequently in this category. Where we state a specific figure such as a refund window, we state when we checked it.

Corrections

If we publish something wrong, we correct it in the article itself and move the updated date. We do not delete errors quietly. Where a correction changes the substance of a recommendation, we note what changed.

To report an error, use the contact page and tell us which article and which claim. Corrections supported by a source get handled fastest.

We would rather be corrected in public than be quietly wrong.

Independence

We currently earn nothing from anything you buy — there are no affiliate links on this site, as our disclosure explains in full. No advertiser or seller sees an article before publication, and none has ever been given the opportunity to change one. Where a conclusion would cost us money, we publish it anyway — the saw palmetto article is the clearest example.