Research review priorities
Supplement research priorities
These are research priorities, not recommendations. We selected decisions where public interest, plausible benefit, evidence maturity, and safety stakes make a careful synthesis especially useful.
- priority dossiers
- 148
- claim-level questions
- 444
- study extraction underway
- 148
01 / PRIORITY
How priorities were selected
Priority reflects relevance to healthy aging, frequency of real-world use, maturity of human evidence, the cost of a wrong decision, and the need to separate a valid narrow use from broader marketing claims. It does not rank efficacy or imply that everyone should take the product.
02 / EXTRACTION
What happens next
For every question, we screen the PubMed candidate set, connect multiple publications from the same trial, extract population, dose, comparator, duration, outcomes, harms, and funding, then synthesize supportive, mixed, negative, and safety findings together.
Only screened studies enter audited study and participant totals. Search-result counts and the papers listed here as questions never become evidence by themselves.Iron bisglycinate
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 4
Why this is a research priority
Iron bisglycinate may deliver iron at lower doses with fewer gastrointestinal symptoms, but evidence is population-specific and includes small, combined-treatment, and retracted studies.
Questions being reviewed
- Does iron bisglycinate prevent or treat iron deficiency as effectively as standard oral forms?
- Can lower elemental-iron doses preserve efficacy while reducing gastrointestinal adverse effects?
- Which findings are independently attributable, unretracted, and applicable beyond pregnancy or small pediatric cohorts?
Vitamin K2 (MK-7)
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 4
Why this is a research priority
MK-7 reliably changes vitamin-K-dependent biomarkers, but small bone and vascular surrogate trials do not establish fewer fractures or cardiovascular events.
Questions being reviewed
- Does MK-7 improve bone density or prevent clinical fractures beyond biomarker changes?
- Do arterial-stiffness changes translate into fewer cardiovascular events?
- Which doses and baseline vitamin K states matter, and how should vitamin-K antagonists constrain use?
Vitamin K2 (MK-4)
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 4
Why this is a research priority
Most direct MK-4 osteoporosis trials use a prescription-scale 45 mg/day, with mixed fracture, density, and surrogate findings that cannot be transferred to ordinary supplement doses.
Questions being reviewed
- Does prescription-dose MK-4 reduce fractures in adequately blinded, controlled trials?
- How do biomarker, bone-density, geometry, and derived-strength results differ?
- Why are 45 mg treatment trials not equivalent to supplements, and what does warfarin use mean for safety?
L-methylfolate (5-MTHF)
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 4
Why this is a research priority
Nutrition-dose 5-MTHF for folate status and prescription-dose 15 mg L-methylfolate as psychiatric adjunct are distinct uses with different endpoints and supervision needs.
Questions being reviewed
- How does 5-MTHF compare with folic acid for folate status and proven pregnancy outcomes?
- Does 15 mg L-methylfolate help adults with inadequate SSRI response, and how consistent are the trials?
- What evidence supports other psychiatric uses, and how should B12 status and bipolar risk be managed?
Methylcobalamin
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 3
Why this is a research priority
Methylcobalamin corrects low B12, but claims of formulation superiority and direct neuropathy treatment rest on selective outcomes and predominantly high-risk-of-bias trials.
Questions being reviewed
- How effectively does methylcobalamin correct confirmed B12 deficiency and its cause-specific consequences?
- Does methylcobalamin improve diabetic neuropathy symptoms or nerve function beyond correcting low B12?
- Is methylcobalamin clinically superior to cyanocobalamin, and do higher oral doses add benefit?
03 / SOURCES
Research standards
The review begins with federal evidence summaries and PubMed records, then moves to trial-level extraction. Product claims or another publisher’s evidence grade are not copied into the ledger.