How we check a claim
A supplement can have a real study behind it, and the promise can still be a stretch. So every claim gets the same three questions.
The three questions
- Who took part? Rats, cells, trained athletes, older men low in a vitamin? A result only applies to the people it was tested in.
- What was measured? A hormone level is not muscle, energy or how people feel. We say exactly what the study measured.
- What actually changed? Against a placebo, or only against the starting point? How big was the change, in the authors' own words?
Where the evidence comes from
- Published studies, read in PubMed (we work from the abstracts, and the full text where it's open access).
- Trial registries such as ClinicalTrials.gov, which describe what researchers planned to test. A registration is not a result.
- Regulators' records, such as FDA labels and safety notices.
Every source on screen is real
The study excerpts in our videos and on this site are genuine screenshots of the PubMed record (via Europe PMC), shown with their citation and linked. We never use AI-generated images of documents, products or real people.
The claims ledger
Before a film is made, every factual line in it gets a row: the claim, the value, the source and its status. Marketing claims are attributed (“promoted for”); results come only from published studies. If a source doesn't say it, we soften the line or cut it.
What we don't do
- No dosing, injection or buying advice. This is an investigation of claims, not a guide to taking anything.
- No jokes at patients or at findings. The jokes are for the hype.
- No money from the brands we review. See About & independence.
Corrections
If we got something wrong, email hello@testedinhumans.com with the source. We fix the page, note the correction, and say so in the next video.