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.
111

Boswellia serrata

Review stage
Extracting studies
audited research papers
1

Why this is a research priority

One enriched extract has promising short-term osteoarthritis evidence, but products are not interchangeable and long-term outcomes are untested.

Questions being reviewed
  1. Which standardized Boswellia extract improves clinically meaningful osteoarthritis pain and function?
  2. Which boswellic-acid profile, dose, and duration are supported, and is there any structural benefit?
  3. What gastrointestinal, allergy, pregnancy, anticoagulant, anti-inflammatory-drug, and liver limits apply?
Open evidence dossier
112

Bromelain

Review stage
Extracting studies
audited research papers
1

Why this is a research priority

Oral pain effects are small and condition-specific, while topical wound evidence cannot be generalized to oral supplements.

Questions being reviewed
  1. Does oral bromelain provide clinically meaningful pain or sinusitis benefit versus standard care?
  2. Which oral dose, enzyme activity, enteric formulation, and duration are supported, distinct from topical use?
  3. What pineapple/latex allergy, bleeding, anticoagulant, antibiotic, surgery, pregnancy, and gastrointestinal limits apply?
Open evidence dossier
113

Red yeast rice

Review stage
Extracting studies
audited research papers
2

Why this is a research priority

Tested extracts lower LDL because monacolin K is lovastatin, but retail exposure is wildly unpredictable and statin-like risks and interactions remain.

Questions being reviewed
  1. Which standardized red yeast rice products lower LDL, and is cardiovascular-event benefit established?
  2. How variable are monacolin K, other monacolins, citrinin, contamination, and label accuracy?
  3. What muscle, liver, kidney, pregnancy, grapefruit/CYP, medicine, and duplicate-statin limits apply?
Open evidence dossier
114

Aged garlic extract

Review stage
Extracting studies
audited research papers
2

Why this is a research priority

Aged garlic produces modest short-term blood-pressure changes, but event reduction and independent product replication remain unestablished.

Questions being reviewed
  1. Does standardized aged garlic meaningfully lower ambulatory and clinic blood pressure as add-on care?
  2. Do arterial-stiffness, plaque, lipid, or inflammatory changes translate into fewer cardiovascular events?
  3. What bleeding, anticoagulant, surgery, blood-pressure, glucose, gastrointestinal, allergy, and pregnancy limits apply?
Open evidence dossier
115

Citrus bergamot extract

Review stage
Extracting studies
audited research papers
1

Why this is a research priority

Large pooled lipid estimates conflict with inconsistent products and incomplete reporting, and clinical cardiovascular outcomes are absent.

Questions being reviewed
  1. Which standardized bergamot extract lowers LDL and triglycerides in independently replicated placebo-controlled trials?
  2. Do lipid changes translate to fewer cardiovascular events or statin-sparing benefit?
  3. What photosensitivity, grapefruit-like CYP interaction, medicine, liver, kidney, and product-mixture limits apply?
Open evidence dossier

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.

NIH Office of Dietary Supplements ↗PubMed / NCBI ↗NCCIH ↗