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.Multivitamin/mineral
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 4
Why this is a research priority
Extremely common, easy to overinterpret, and newly discussed for cognition despite uncertain effects on major disease and mortality.
Questions being reviewed
- Which people meaningfully improve nutrient adequacy with a multivitamin?
- Do recent randomized trials support slower cognitive decline in older adults?
- Does routine use reduce cardiovascular disease, cancer, or mortality?
Melatonin
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 5
Why this is a research priority
Widely used for sleep, but benefit differs by circadian problem, age, formulation, dose, and product quality.
Questions being reviewed
- How much does melatonin change sleep onset, total sleep, and next-day function?
- Which timing strategies work for jet lag or circadian rhythm disorders?
- What is known about long-term safety, older adults, children, and product-label accuracy?
Probiotics
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 4
Why this is a research priority
The category is frequently generalized even though benefits and harms depend on strain, dose, host, and indication.
Questions being reviewed
- Which strains prevent antibiotic-associated diarrhea, in which populations?
- Which strain-specific gastrointestinal indications have reproducible benefit?
- Is there evidence for healthy aging or immunity, and who faces infection risk?
Caffeine
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 5
Why this is a research priority
Clear acute effects on alertness and some performance outcomes coexist with sleep disruption, dependence, and observational longevity claims.
Questions being reviewed
- Which doses improve alertness or exercise performance, and for how long?
- How do dose, timing, and individual metabolism affect sleep?
- What can and cannot be inferred from coffee, cardiovascular, and longevity studies?
Berberine
- Review stage
- Extracting studies
- audited research papers
- 4
Why this is a research priority
Popular for glucose, lipids, and weight despite variable products, short trials, gastrointestinal effects, and substantial interaction potential.
Questions being reviewed
- How strong is the evidence for glucose control, and compared with which treatments?
- What are the effects on lipids and body weight, and are they clinically meaningful?
- Which medicine interactions, pregnancy risks, and product-quality issues limit use?
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.