Silvie's Myth Busting Hub

There is more nutrition and supplement advice available than ever, and a growing share of it is unreliable. This is not mainly a problem of outright falsehood. It is a problem of claims that are technically defensible and practically misleading.

A study exists for almost every position. The question is what kind of study, in whom, at what dose, and whether the finding survived replication. A mechanism demonstrated in cells is routinely reported as an effect in people. A trial in young male athletes is routinely generalised to women after menopause, who differ in hormonal environment, muscle fibre composition and bone turnover. A dose used in research is routinely invoked to sell a product containing a fraction of it.

How to read a health claim

A few questions separate most reliable claims from most unreliable ones.

Was it studied in humans, or in cells and animals? Mechanistic research explains why something might work. It does not establish that it does.

Was it studied in people like you? Findings in young men do not transfer automatically to women over 55. Where a claim rests entirely on such a population, that is worth knowing.

At what dose, and does the product supply it? An ingredient present below the studied range is not a weaker version of the studied effect. It is frequently no effect.

Has it been replicated? A single trial is a hypothesis with data attached. Confidence should track the weight of evidence, not the confidence of the person describing it.

What did it not show? Absence of harm is not evidence of benefit, and a statistically significant result is not necessarily a meaningful one.

How Silvie evaluates the evidence

We select ingredients by form, not only by name. The form determines how much of a nutrient reaches the tissue that needs it, and two products naming the same compound can differ substantially in what the body absorbs. Where a specific form has been used in the human trials, that is the form we use.

We dose to the levels tested in those published trials rather than to the smallest quantity that permits a claim on the label.

We prioritise human studies, and where the human evidence is mixed, preliminary or limited to a narrow population, we say so in the article rather than omitting it from the marketing.

We also try to state plainly what supplementation cannot do. It is not a substitute for training, for sleep, or for food. A company that never tells you a product will not help you is not a company describing the evidence.

You can read how we assess evidence, select ingredient forms and set doses in our approach to research.