These are the rules we hold ourselves to. They exist so you know what you are reading and how it was made.
Independence
We accept no payment for editorial coverage. No article on this site has been commissioned, reviewed, approved or influenced by an advertiser, and no advertiser is told in advance what we are publishing.
We do not use affiliate links. We do not review or rank branded products, and we do not sell anything. Where we discuss a substance — a vitamin, a mineral, a compound — we write about the substance and the evidence for it, never about a particular brand’s version of it.
Advertising on this site is served by third-party networks in clearly labelled slots. We do not choose which advertisers appear.
Sourcing
Every substantive claim is traced to a primary source: the study, the systematic review, or the clinical guideline itself, not a news report about it.
We prefer, in this order: systematic reviews and meta-analyses; large randomised controlled trials; large prospective cohort studies; smaller trials; observational and animal work. When our best available source is a mouse study, the article says “in mice” in the sentence, not in a note at the end.
We name the limitations that matter — sample size, self-reported data, population that does not generalise, funding source — inside the article, at the point where the finding is described.
Language
We do not describe associations as causes. “Linked to” and “causes” are different claims and we keep them apart.
We give absolute numbers where relative ones would mislead. A treatment that reduces a risk from two in a thousand to one in a thousand is a 50% reduction, and reporting only that figure is technically true and practically dishonest.
Headlines have to be supported by the article underneath them.
Corrections
We correct errors of fact promptly and visibly. Significant corrections are noted on the article and listed on our corrections page. We do not quietly edit an article to remove a mistake.
Medical boundary
This site publishes health information, not medical advice. We do not diagnose, we do not recommend treatments for individuals, and we do not suggest anyone change or stop prescribed medication. Articles that touch on symptoms or conditions say plainly when it is time to speak to a doctor.