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.Oral lavender oil
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 1
Why this is a research priority
Evidence is concentrated in one proprietary oral preparation and manufacturer-linked trials, so it cannot be generalized to aromatherapy or arbitrary essential oils.
Questions being reviewed
- Does oral Silexan improve clinician- and patient-rated anxiety in defined anxiety disorders?
- Why do Silexan findings not establish efficacy of inhaled lavender or other oral oils?
- What gastrointestinal, allergy, sedation, interaction, pregnancy, and industry-independence limits apply?
Saffron extract
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 1
Why this is a research priority
Saffron improves some self-rated mental-health scales but not clinician-rated measures, with extreme heterogeneity and no basis for replacing assessed care.
Questions being reviewed
- Which depressive or anxiety outcomes improve, and why do self- and clinician-rated measures differ?
- Which extract, dose, duration, diagnosis, and adjunctive or monotherapy context is supported?
- What pregnancy, bleeding, allergy, bipolar, interaction, product-quality, and mental-health-care boundaries apply?
St. John’s wort
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 2
Why this is a research priority
Standardized extracts can help mild-to-moderate depression, but product heterogeneity and powerful enzyme induction create unusually broad, serious interaction risks.
Questions being reviewed
- Which standardized extracts are effective for mild-to-moderate major depression versus placebo or antidepressants?
- Why are severe depression, suicidality, bipolar symptoms, and treatment changes clinician-directed boundaries?
- How do CYP and transporter induction affect contraceptives, antidepressants, transplant, HIV, anticoagulant, and other medicines?
S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAMe)
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 1
Why this is a research priority
SAMe has moderate-certainty monotherapy evidence for depression, but adjunctive and antidepressant-comparison results remain uncertain and psychiatric care boundaries are essential.
Questions being reviewed
- Does SAMe monotherapy improve depressive symptoms versus placebo, and in which severity and formulation?
- Does SAMe add benefit to antidepressants or perform comparably to them in adequately powered trials?
- What bipolar activation, suicidality, serotonin, medicine-interaction, pregnancy, and care-supervision limits apply?
Rhodiola rosea
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 2
Why this is a research priority
Fatigue evidence is contradictory and methodologically weak, and a rigorous trial directly favored placebo.
Questions being reviewed
- Does standardized Rhodiola improve validated physical or mental fatigue outcomes in defined populations?
- Do exercise or cognitive-performance findings replicate without caffeine or multi-ingredient confounding?
- Which extract, dose, duration, stimulation, sleep, psychiatric, pregnancy, and interaction limits apply?
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.