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Sourcing & Citation Policy

Every claim on this site links to the real source it came from — a study, a regulator, a reference article, or a community report. This page is the whole method behind that: which sources we use, what each is worth, what we refuse to treat as evidence, and the rule that keeps a weak source from ever reading as a strong one.

The one rule that matters

A claim can never score higher than the source it came from. Each source is sorted into a reliability tier, and that tier is the ceiling on any claim drawn from it — set by where the source was published (its domain), not by how the source describes itself. A vendor’s product page is a vendor’s product page no matter what it claims, so it can never produce a research-grade score. The ceiling is computed in code; it is not an editorial judgment someone can override.

The reliability tiers

High to low. The base score is the most a claim sourced here can reach before corroboration or conflict adjust it.

95Peer-reviewed studyPublished in a peer-reviewed journal. The gold standard — other experts checked the methods before it ran.
90Regulator or clinical registryIssued by a regulator or a clinical trial registry. Carries the weight of an official health authority.
72Established referenceReputable reference outlets and newsrooms with editorial oversight and fact-checking.
60Specialist communityExpert forums, practitioner communities, and industry trade press. Useful primary signal, short of peer review.
50Unclassified sourceA page our classifier could not place in a stronger tier. Kept on the ledger at a neutral score rather than guessed at.
40Vendor / seller pageA product page whose job is to sell. May describe real products, but its claims exist to convert buyers.
30Forum or blogAnecdote and opinion from forums and blogs. Genuine experience, but unverified and often second-hand.
12Marketing copyPure promotion — written to sell, not to inform.

What we use — and what we don’t

We use peer-reviewed research, clinical guidelines and regulator pages, established medical reference, specialist communities, and — clearly labelled, at a low tier — vendor pages and forums, so you can see what the market is saying without mistaking it for evidence.
We refuse to let marketing copy stand as a claim. A supplier’s “clinically proven” is recorded as a vendor claim at a vendor score, with a note to verify it independently — never as established fact.
Every claim is drill-through. Tap the source link on any claim to read where it came from and decide for yourself. If we can’t link a claim to a real source, it doesn’t publish.

The full scoring math (corroboration boosts, conflict penalties, the publish threshold) is on our methodology page. Found a source we’ve mis-scored? See our corrections policy.