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.Vitamin B12
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 4
Why this is a research priority
Deficiency risk rises with vegan diets, malabsorption, age, and certain medicines; energy and cognition claims in replete people need separation.
Questions being reviewed
- Which risk groups benefit from screening and replacement, and which biomarkers matter?
- When is high-dose oral B12 comparable with intramuscular treatment?
- Does extra B12 improve energy or cognition when deficiency is absent?
Iron
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 4
Why this is a research priority
Highly effective for confirmed deficiency but potentially harmful when taken without diagnosis; fatigue claims require ferritin and anemia context.
Questions being reviewed
- Which oral iron regimens best treat iron-deficiency anemia with acceptable tolerability?
- Does iron reduce fatigue in iron-deficient people without anemia?
- Who is harmed by unnecessary iron, and which medicines or foods alter absorption?
Calcium
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 5
Why this is a research priority
Bone-health decisions depend on baseline intake, osteoporosis risk, vitamin D, residence setting, formulation, and kidney-stone risk.
Questions being reviewed
- When does supplementation meaningfully close an inadequate dietary calcium intake?
- Which populations have fewer fractures with calcium, alone or with vitamin D?
- What do trials show about kidney stones and cardiovascular safety?
Zinc
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 5
Why this is a research priority
Deficiency treatment is established, cold-lozenge evidence is formulation-sensitive, and chronic high doses can cause copper deficiency.
Questions being reviewed
- Who is at risk of zinc deficiency and what improves after replacement?
- Which lozenge formulations and timing shorten common-cold duration?
- At what dose and duration do copper deficiency and neurologic risks become important?
Psyllium / soluble fiber
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 4
Why this is a research priority
A practical fiber intervention with measurable lipid, glycemic, and bowel outcomes plus important medicine-timing considerations.
Questions being reviewed
- How much does psyllium lower LDL cholesterol, and at what daily intake?
- Does psyllium improve glucose control in prediabetes or type 2 diabetes?
- How effective is it for constipation, and how do fluids and medicine timing affect safety?
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.