All sources

What it found: The company says its Organ.Aut magnetic bioprinter was delivered to the ISS on December 3, 2018, aboard Soyuz MS-11 under an August 2017 agreement with RSC Energia, and that cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko printed human cartilage tissue and a rodent thyroid gland, which it calls the first such printing in orbit.

Limits: The company's own page, undated, so the claims are the company's.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: An April Fools' Day piece describing an invented 25-year Mars plan with 3D-printed artificial wombs, whose own disclaimer calls it a joke and says that as far as the publisher knows Musk is not pursuing bioprinting to populate a Mars colony.

Limits: A satire, cited only to flag that it exists and is not evidence of anything Musk said or did.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: ACC expert analysis of the 2026 guideline: LDL-C under 55 mg/dL and non-HDL-C under 85 mg/dL for very-high-risk ASCVD, LDL-C under 70 mg/dL for ASCVD not classed as very high risk, PCSK9 inhibitors lowering LDL-C by about 60% versus 15 to 20% for ezetimibe, and bempedoic acid elevated to a first-line nonstatin option on the strength of CLEAR Outcomes.

Limits: An expert commentary on vascular disease; it gives no numeric thresholds for Lp(a) or ApoB.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Retrospective comparison of 3,655 DXA and bioimpedance (BIA) measures taken fasting in 2010 to 2016. At BMI 16 to 18.5 the two agreed within 1 kg, but above 18.5 and up to 40 BIA overestimated fat-free mass by 3.38 to 8.28 kg and underestimated fat mass by 2.51 to 5.67 kg.

Limits: A retrospective single-device comparison that treats DXA as the reference, in a clinical population, so it does not show how a modern multi-frequency scale performs in a lean, trained person.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Review describing cardiopulmonary exercise testing as a clinical tool that measures how the lungs, heart and circulation, and skeletal muscles work together to judge exercise capacity and predict outcomes, covering the physiology, test method, indications and contraindications, and interpretation.

Limits: A 2007 review centered on heart failure; the page cites only what its abstract states.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Follow-up of the 443 KiSel-10 participants, supplemented for four years: after 12 years cardiovascular mortality was 28.1% on selenium plus CoQ10 versus 38.7% on placebo (HR 0.59, 95% CI 0.42 to 0.81, P = 0.001).

Limits: A small follow-up the authors call hypothesis-generating, with the study tablets supplied by Pharma Nord, a supplement maker, and it still cannot separate CoQ10 from selenium.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: KiSel-10: 443 Swedish adults aged 70 to 88 took selenium plus coenzyme Q10 or placebo; over 5.2 years of follow-up cardiovascular mortality was 5.9% versus 12.6% (P = 0.015), NT-proBNP was lower at 48 months (214 vs 302 ng/L, P = 0.014), and echocardiography scores were better (P = 0.03).

Limits: A combined selenium and CoQ10 product given to older Swedish adults, so it cannot isolate CoQ10 from selenium or say the result carries over to other populations.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: Randomized trial of nicotinamide versus placebo in 158 organ-transplant recipients (79 per group), stopped early for poor recruitment. At 12 months there were 207 new keratinocyte cancers on nicotinamide and 210 on placebo (rate ratio 1.0, 95% CI 0.8 to 1.3, P = 0.96), with similar adverse events.

Limits: Stopped early and underpowered for smaller effects, and transplant recipients on immunosuppression differ from the high-risk adults in the 2015 trial.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Company press release: in the KARDIA-3 phase 2 study (Cohort A, 270 patients) the 300 mg dose lowered office systolic pressure a placebo-adjusted 5.0 mm Hg at month 3 (p=0.0431), but the company says the study did not meet its pre-specified definition of statistical significance after multiplicity control. The companies plan the ZENITH outcomes trial of about 11,000 patients in more than 30 countries, expected to start by the end of 2025.

Limits: A company press release; I did not find whether ZENITH has started, and the 600 mg arm showed no extra benefit.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: News item on the 2024 Lancet Commission: 45% of dementia cases could potentially be delayed or reduced, a 5% increase from the 2020 findings, and two new risk factors, failing eyesight and elevated LDL cholesterol, bring the total to 14. Less education has the greatest impact in early life, and social isolation, air pollution, and vision loss in late life.

Limits: A news summary by an advocacy organization, not the report itself, and it does not list all 14 factors.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: ACC release on the 2025 guideline: categories unchanged from 2017 (normal under 120/80, elevated 120 to 129, stage 1 130 to 139 or 80 to 89, stage 2 140 or higher or 90 or higher), a goal of under 130/80 mm Hg, PREVENT for 10- and 30-year risk in ages 30 to 79, urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio for everyone with high blood pressure, sodium under 2,300 mg a day, alcohol ideally none (if any, no more than 2 drinks a day for men and 1 for women), and 75 to 150 minutes a week of exercise.

Limits: A press release summarizing the guideline, so I did not see the class of recommendation or level of evidence for each point.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: ACC summary of the 2026 dyslipidemia guideline: LDL-C goals of under 100 mg/dL for borderline or intermediate risk, under 70 for high risk, and under 55 for very-high-risk ASCVD; ApoB may help assess residual risk once LDL-C and non-HDL-C goals are met; Lp(a) should be measured at least once in adulthood, with repeat testing generally not needed; selective coronary calcium scans for men over 40 and women over 45 at borderline or intermediate risk; PREVENT-ASCVD replaces the Pooled Cohort Equations for 10- and 30-year risk in ages 30 to 79; inclisiran is still being studied for outcomes.

Limits: A summary page, not the guideline; it gives no numeric thresholds for non-HDL-C, ApoB, Lp(a), or calcium scores.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: ACR statement (April 17, 2023): it does not believe there is sufficient evidence to justify recommending total body screening for people with no symptoms, risk factors, or family history, says there is no documented evidence that it is cost-efficient or effective in prolonging life, and worries it would lead to unnecessary follow-up testing and procedures.

Limits: A 2023 professional-society position that the ACR says it will keep monitoring, so newer evidence may change it.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: ACSM position stand: novices use loads of 8 to 12 RM on 2 to 3 days a week; intermediates train 3 to 4 days a week and advanced lifters 4 to 5 days; for hypertrophy, loads of 1 to 12 RM with emphasis on 6 to 12 RM, rest of 1 to 2 minutes, and multiple sets; raise load 2 to 10% once one to two extra reps are possible.

Limits: A 2009 consensus statement built on the evidence then available, so newer meta-analyses (volume, frequency, load) refine parts of it.

Cited on:Training

What it found: ACSM position stand: exertional heat illness covers muscle cramping, heat exhaustion, and exertional heatstroke, defined as a rectal temperature above 104°F (40°C) with organ-system failure, mostly in the central nervous system. Heatstroke can strike seemingly healthy athletes even in relatively cool conditions, people who are not acclimatized, take certain medications, are dehydrated, or were recently ill are more prone to collapse in the heat, and early recognition and rapid cooling reduce death.

Limits: A 2007 consensus on athletes in training and competition, not a statement about yoga studios.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: ACSM position stand on hydration: start activity well hydrated, aim to prevent a loss of more than 2% of body weight during exercise, expect sweat rates and sweat electrolytes to vary widely between people, estimate individual sweat rate by weighing before and after exercise, and replace losses afterward.

Limits: A general exercise guideline from 2007 that does not address 90-minute heated classes specifically.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: The American Diabetes Association's 2026 Standards of Care chapter on the diagnosis and classification of diabetes; the ADA's Professional Practice Committee updates the Standards of Care every year.

Limits: I could not read the chapter's text or tables (the cached PMC copy is front matter only), so no ADA cutoff is quoted from it.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes, Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: News release on the 2025 AHA/ACC guideline: home blood pressure monitoring is recommended to confirm an office diagnosis and track progress; high blood pressure is 130/80 mm Hg or higher (stage 1 is 130 to 139 or 80 to 89, stage 2 is 140 or 90 and higher), normal is under 120/80, and the systolic goal for adults with high blood pressure is under 130.

Limits: A press release summarizing the guideline, and it does not mention validated or cuffless devices.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: News release on the 2026 AHA statistics update (2023 data): heart disease is the leading US cause of death at 22% of deaths; cardiovascular deaths were 915,973 (down from 941,652 in 2022) and coronary heart disease deaths 349,470; about 125.9 million US adults (47.3%) have high blood pressure.

Limits: A press release summarizing the full report, not the report itself, and the report was later corrected.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Review of how ketones are measured: nutritional ketosis (keto-adaptation) corresponds to blood beta-hydroxybutyrate of at least 0.5 mM, a person eating a balanced diet sits near 0.1 mM, and ketoacidosis starts above 3 mM, with diabetic ketoacidosis ranging from 3 to 20 mM.

Limits: A review of measurement methods; ketosis thresholds vary a little between sources and are conventions, not sharp biological lines.

Cited on:Keto, Fasting: my monthly 3-day water and broth fast

What it found: Narrative evidence review of 12 common creatine questions citing more than 500 publications. Recommends 3 to 5 g/day or 0.1 g/kg/day, says a loading phase is not required, finds no evidence that recommended doses damage the kidneys, cause hair loss, or cause dehydration or cramping, and notes loading can add about 1 to 3 kg, mostly water.

Limits: A narrative review by authors who have researched and consulted on creatine, not a systematic review, and it does not address time of day.

Cited on:Creatine

What it found: The Apotex Corp. label (text revised 2/2025, page updated September 14, 2026) says Nuvigil is indicated to improve wakefulness in adults with excessive sleepiness from obstructive sleep apnea, narcolepsy, or shift work disorder, and reads "Manufactured for: Apotex Corp. Weston, Florida."

Limits: The fetcher read only the first 100,000 characters of the label.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: A January 9, 2025 Toronto announcement that Apotex's affiliate Nuvo Pharmaceuticals (Ireland) DAC has acquired the United States rights to Provigil and Nuvigil; it describes Apotex as headquartered in Toronto.

Limits: A company announcement; it does not say who held the rights before or the price, and it makes no ownership claim about SK Capital.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: Two-year follow-up of the same Virta cohort (262 in the program, 87 in usual care): glycemic medication other than metformin fell from 55.7% to 26.8% of users, insulin use fell 62%, diabetes reversal was reported in 53.5% and remission in 17.6% of the program group (none in usual care), and spine bone density was unchanged.

Limits: Non-randomized and open-label, and the abstract does not give numeric HbA1c, weight, or LDL changes for year 2.

Cited on:Keto, Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Peter Attia's second conversation with Rhonda Patrick; the show notes include a segment on possible brain benefits of sauna and her personal protocol at 1:09:30.

Limits: The detailed show notes are behind a membership paywall, so I confirmed the topic but not what she said.

Cited on:Sauna, Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Peter Attia's third conversation with Rhonda Patrick; the preview lists sauna as an exercise mimic that may help cardiovascular and brain health and mood, plus a segment on dementia risk and why hotter may not be better.

Limits: Only the preview is public (the rest is behind a membership paywall), so I confirmed the topics but did not read any temperatures or durations from this episode.

Cited on:Sauna

What it found: Rapid evidence assessment of randomized trials up to October 2012 that included 10 randomized controlled trials and 4 controlled clinical trials. It made no recommendation for tyrosine's effect on physical performance under stress and a weak recommendation in favor of tyrosine for cognitive stress, because all cognitive studies showed a positive effect.

Limits: A rapid review with a search that stops in 2012, and the authors judged the evidence insufficient for confident recommendations.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: Dose-response meta-analysis of 20 prospective studies. Each 28 g (about a handful) of nuts a day was linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease (RR 0.79, 95% CI 0.70 to 0.88), coronary heart disease (0.71, 0.63 to 0.80), and all-cause mortality (0.78, 0.72 to 0.84).

Limits: Pooled observational cohorts, so people who eat nuts may differ in other healthy ways.

Cited on:Superfoods

What it found: Systematic review of 6 randomized trials with 281 healthy people. Short-term memory and intelligence or reasoning may improve; long-term memory, spatial memory, attention, executive function, and reaction time were conflicting; young people showed no change and vegetarians responded better than meat-eaters.

Limits: Few, small, and varied trials, and the abstract reports no effect sizes or doses.

Cited on:Creatine, Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: A drug-signature screen flagged sulforaphane; in liver cells and diabetic animals it suppressed glucose production through NRF2 at a magnitude similar to metformin, and in obese patients with dysregulated type 2 diabetes a concentrated broccoli sprout extract reduced fasting glucose and HbA1c.

Limits: The abstract gives no sample size, dose, or effect sizes for the human arm, and much of the work is in cells and animals.

Cited on:Superfoods

What it found: Twelve-week randomized placebo-controlled trial of 51 adults aged 50 to 69 (17 per group: placebo, caffeine, matcha). The matcha group took 2,070 mg/day (about 66 mg caffeine and 48 mg theanine) and improved attention and work output under mild stress more than caffeine alone.

Limits: Seventeen per group, and five authors are employees of ITO EN, which makes the matcha.

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: Forty-week phase 3 trial (NCT06354660) of 537 adults with type 2 diabetes and HbA1c 7.0% to 9.5% randomized 1:1:1:1 to once-weekly retatrutide 4, 9, or 12 mg or placebo. HbA1c fell 1.69%, 1.86%, and 1.94% versus 0.81% on placebo, body weight fell 11.5%, 13.9%, and 15.3% versus 2.6%, discontinuations due to adverse events were 2% to 5% with retatrutide and 0% with placebo, no severe hypoglycemia was reported, and two deaths in the 4 mg group were unrelated to the study drug.

Limits: Funded by Eli Lilly and Company; 40 weeks in people with fairly recent diabetes (mean duration 2.5 years), so it cannot show long-term outcomes.

Cited on:Retatrutide

What it found: US POINTER randomized 2,111 older adults (mean age 68.2 years) at 5 US sites to a structured lifestyle program (1,056) or a self-guided one (1,055) for 2 years. A global cognition score rose in both groups (0.243 versus 0.213 SD per year), a difference of 0.029 SD per year (95% CI 0.008 to 0.050, P = .008), and the benefit was consistent in APOE e4 carriers and noncarriers (P = .95 for interaction).

Limits: Both groups improved and the gap between them is small, it compares two lifestyle programs with no true no-intervention group, and two years cannot show fewer dementia cases.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Meta-analysis of 6 randomized trials in 302 statin-treated patients: CoQ10 did not significantly change plasma creatine kinase (mean difference 11.69 U/L, 95% CI -14.25 to 37.63) or muscle pain (SMD -0.53, 95% CI -1.33 to 0.28), and the authors found no significant benefit for statin-induced myopathy.

Limits: Six small trials with varied designs, so it may miss a modest benefit, and the authors call for larger well-designed trials.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: Systematic review of MEDLINE studies from January 1990 to December 2014 of modafinil in healthy people who were not sleep-deprived. Most studies using basic tests found better executive function, only half found better attention or learning and memory, a few found worse divergent creative thinking, complex assessments consistently showed gains in attention, executive function, and learning, and the authors saw no preponderance of side effects or mood changes.

Limits: The abstract gives no study counts, participant numbers, or doses, the review is of modafinil rather than armodafinil, and the studies were mostly short single-dose lab tests.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil)

What it found: In 170 healthy people, lean mass was significantly related to serum and urinary creatinine but not to cystatin C. Serum creatinine was 1.04 versus 0.95 mg/dL in the moderate or intense activity group versus the sedentary group, while cystatin C did not differ, and the authors conclude cystatin C may suit people with higher muscle mass better.

Limits: A cross-sectional study of 170 healthy people that did not involve creatine supplements.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Review of recent HMB evidence in hospitalized and community-dwelling older adults. It found no new hospital-based studies in the prior 2 years apart from one post hoc analysis, and three community-dwelling studies whose methodological quality was suboptimal, so the authors call for high-quality studies in both settings.

Limits: A short narrative update with no pooled numbers.

Cited on:HMB

What it found: Sixty-six healthy volunteers were assigned to 3, 5, 7, or 9 hours in bed for 7 days, then 8 hours for 3 recovery nights. Performance on a vigilance task kept falling in the 3-hour group, leveled off at a lower level in the 5- and 7-hour groups (with lapses rising only at 5 hours), and stayed at baseline at 9 hours; the 5- and 7-hour groups showed no meaningful recovery after 3 nights.

Limits: A one-week laboratory study of 66 volunteers, so it cannot show long-term effects or whether people adapt over months.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Phase 3 trial at 92 centers in eight countries of 1,152 adults with obesity and type 2 diabetes randomized 1:1:1:1 to retatrutide 4, 9, or 12 mg or placebo. At week 80 body weight fell 11.9%, 16.8%, and 18.8% versus 5.1% on placebo (treatment-regimen estimand); diarrhea occurred in 27%, 34%, and 34% versus 13%, nausea in 14%, 21%, and 28% versus 8%, and dysesthesia in 4%, 6%, and 7% versus 1%. Permanent discontinuation due to adverse events or death was 4% (4 mg), 12% (9 mg), 8% (12 mg), and 5% (placebo).

Limits: Funded by Eli Lilly and Company; 80 weeks in adults with type 2 diabetes, so it cannot show long-term safety or results in people without diabetes.

Cited on:Retatrutide

What it found: Secondary analysis of a 12-week randomized diet trial of 62 people given a dairy-limited (0.3 g/day dairy fat), low-fat dairy (8.7 g/day), or full-fat dairy (28.5 g/day) diet: trans-C16:1n-7 plus iso-C17:0 explained 35.4% of the variation in dairy fat intake, while C15:0 and C17:0 were not associated with dairy fat intake after adjusting for liver fat.

Limits: A secondary analysis of one small diet trial that tests whether blood C15:0 is a good marker of dairy fat, not any health outcome.

Cited on:fatty15 (C15:0)

What it found: REDUCE-IT randomized 8,179 statin-treated patients with elevated triglycerides (135 to 499 mg/dL) to 2 g of icosapent ethyl twice daily or placebo for a median 4.9 years. The primary composite endpoint was 17.2% versus 22.0% (HR 0.75, 95% CI 0.68 to 0.83); hospitalization for atrial fibrillation was 3.1% versus 2.1% and serious bleeding 2.7% versus 2.1%.

Limits: Tested a purified prescription EPA drug at 4 g a day in people with high triglycerides on statins, so it does not tell us what over-the-counter fish oil or diet would do.

Cited on:Superfoods, Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Meta-analysis of 18 trials (13 pooled) of contrast water therapy, alternating hot and cold water, after exercise. Compared with passive recovery it improved muscle soreness and reduced strength loss at every follow-up from under 6 hours to 96 hours, but showed little difference from other common recovery methods.

Limits: All 18 trials had a high risk of bias, and it tested alternating hot and cold water baths after hard exercise, not sauna followed by a plunge.

Cited on:Sauna, Cold plunge

What it found: Company press release: the phase 2b LUMA trial of the LRRK2 inhibitor BIIB122 in 648 people with early Parkinson's disease (48 to 144 weeks) did not slow progression on the combined MDS-UPDRS Part II and III score, no secondary endpoint showed a benefit, and Biogen and Denali will stop developing it for idiopathic Parkinson's, while Denali continues the phase 2a BEACON study in LRRK2 carriers with data expected in the first half of 2027.

Limits: A company press release, not peer-reviewed, and I did not open the detailed data.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Open-label extension of four 12-week studies enrolling 743 patients (474 with treated sleep apnea, 113 with shift work disorder, and 156 with narcolepsy) on armodafinil 50 to 250 mg/day. About 57% (420/743) completed 12 months or more, discontinuations for adverse events were 13% (95/743), and the common adverse events were headache (25%), nasopharyngitis (17%), and insomnia (14%), with small average rises in blood pressure (3.6/2.3 mm Hg) and heart rate (6.7 beats per minute).

Limits: Open-label with no placebo group, and people who tolerated the drug stayed in, so it shows tolerability over time and not how much of the benefit is the drug; the abstract gives no sleepiness scores.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil)

What it found: Cochrane review of 17 small trials (366 participants, all rated low quality) of cold-water immersion below 15°C after exercise. Versus passive recovery, soreness was lower at 24 hours (standardized mean difference -0.55; 95% CI -0.84 to -0.27), 48 hours (-0.66), 72 hours (-0.93), and 96 hours (-0.58).

Limits: Small, low-quality trials with heterogeneous results, most of which did not track adverse events, and it predates the strength-training findings that cold can blunt adaptation.

Cited on:Cold plunge

What it found: Double-blind within-subject fMRI study of 24 healthy older adults aged 61 to 72. Tyrosine did not change reactive or proactive inhibition behavior across the group, and older age predicted a greater harmful effect of tyrosine, relative to placebo, on proactive slowing.

Limits: Twenty-four people, a single session, and the abstract does not report the dose (the full text gives 150 mg/kg).

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: Company page offering full-body DEXA scans (body fat percentage by area, lean mass, visceral fat, bone density) at 100+ US locations, bookable without a doctor's referral; its FAQ says it cut the cost of a DEXA scan from $300 to as low as $39.

Limits: A seller's own marketing page checked on the date shown; prices vary by location and the page makes no accuracy or radiation claim.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Mostly yeast and mouse work: periodic fasting-mimicking cycles in middle-aged mice were reported to extend lifespan, reduce visceral fat and cancers, rejuvenate immune cells, and improve cognition in old mice, and a human pilot of three cycles lowered biomarkers for aging, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer without major adverse effects.

Limits: The main findings are in yeast and mice, and the human part is a small pilot of biomarkers, so it is hypothesis-generating for people.

Cited on:Fasting: my monthly 3-day water and broth fast

What it found: NordICC randomized people aged 55 to 64 in Poland, Norway, and Sweden, inviting 28,220 to a one-time colonoscopy (11,843, or 42.0%, were screened) and following 56,365 as usual care. At a median of 10 years the colorectal cancer risk was 0.98% versus 1.20% (risk ratio 0.82, 95% CI 0.70 to 0.93), and the risk of colorectal cancer death was 0.28% versus 0.31% (risk ratio 0.90, 95% CI 0.64 to 1.16).

Limits: Only 42.0% of those invited were screened, so it measures an invitation rather than a colonoscopy, and the confidence interval for colorectal cancer death is wide.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Retrospective cohort of 2,002 adults aged 51 to 80 who did a sitting-rising test scored 0 to 10 (a point lost for each hand or knee support). Over a median 6.3 years there were 159 deaths; lower scores meant higher mortality (p < 0.001), each one-point rise went with a 21% survival improvement, and adjusted hazard ratios for the three lower score groups were 5.44, 3.44, and 1.84.

Limits: One Brazilian clinic cohort of mostly men (68%) in a narrow age range, with 159 deaths, and the abstract does not name the reference group.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled single-dose trial of 60 healthy adults aged 20 to 40 (30 per group) given a beverage with 250 mg citicoline plus caffeine. The beverage group had faster maze learning and reaction times, fewer go/no-go errors, and higher P450 amplitudes on EEG.

Limits: A single dose with testing about 45 minutes long, a combined citicoline-caffeine product so effects cannot be separated, and sponsored by Nawgan Products.

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: Randomized trial of yoga done in a sauna in healthy older adults (11 intervention, 12 control). Chair sit-and-reach improved 83% versus 3% in controls (p = 0.028), while lower-extremity strength (p = 0.061) and eyes-closed balance (p = 0.056) were trends, not significant.

Limits: Twenty-three people, and only the flexibility result reached significance.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Eighty people on a ketogenic diet for a mean 4.7 years with LDL-C of 190 mg/dL or higher (mean 272), HDL-C of 60 or higher, and triglycerides of 80 or lower were matched 1:1 to controls with mean LDL-C of 123 mg/dL. Coronary calcium was median 0 versus 1 (P=0.520), total plaque score was not different (P=0.357), and LDL-C did not track with plaque in either group.

Limits: Eighty matched pairs selected for a high-HDL, low-triglyceride profile, one time point, controls drawn from a different cohort, and plaque is not the same as heart attacks, so it cannot show long-term safety or apply to people with other lipid profiles.

Cited on:Keto, Cardiovascular disease, explained, Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Meta-analysis of 13 randomized trials lasting 12 months or longer (1,415 patients for weight). Very-low-carbohydrate ketogenic diets produced 0.91 kg more weight loss (95% CI 0.17 to 1.65), lower triglycerides (-0.18 mmol/L), higher HDL (+0.09 mmol/L), and higher LDL-C (+0.12 mmol/L, 95% CI 0.04 to 0.20) than low-fat diets.

Limits: The extra weight loss is under 1 kg on average, and a 2013 pooling of 13 trials cannot say how the result holds up for any one person.

Cited on:Keto

What it found: Meta-analysis of seven randomized crossover trials of adults, mostly overweight or with obesity. Light-intensity walking breaks lowered postprandial glucose (effect -0.72, 95% CI -1.03 to -0.41) and insulin (-0.83, -1.18 to -0.48) versus continued sitting; standing breaks lowered glucose (-0.31) but not insulin, and walking beat standing for both.

Limits: Acute, single-day crossover trials, so it shows glucose after a meal or a sitting day, not long-term diabetes risk.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Randomized trial of 3,018 Dutch adults aged 18 to 65 assigned to a 30-, 60-, or 90-second cold finish to a hot shower for 30 days, or to a control group. Sickness absence from work fell 29% (incidence rate ratio 0.71, P = 0.003), but the number of illness days did not differ between groups.

Limits: Participants know whether they take cold showers, so the self-reported sickness absence could reflect expectation or motivation, and only 79% completed the 30-day protocol.

Cited on:Cold plunge

What it found: WHO guideline for adults: 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate activity, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity, or an equivalent mix, plus regular muscle-strengthening and less sedentary time.

Limits: A population guideline for general health, not a plan for building an athlete, and the evidence was too thin to set a sitting-time limit.

Cited on:Training, Blood sugar and diabetes, Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Three energy-matched diets for 3 weeks of intensified training in elite race walkers (high carbohydrate n=9, periodized carbohydrate n=10, ketogenic low-carb high-fat n=10). The 10 km walk improved 6.6% and 5.3% in the two carbohydrate groups but changed -1.6% (90% CI -8.5 to 5.3) on keto, which also worsened exercise economy despite peak fat oxidation of 1.57 g/min.

Limits: Only 29 elite race walkers over 3 weeks, so it cannot show what a longer adaptation period or other sports would do.

Cited on:Keto

What it found: Case report of a woman in her mid-20s with five days of nausea, vomiting, and loose stools that persisted despite intravenous fluids, metoclopramide, ondansetron, and domperidone, after weekly injections of an unverified product reported to contain retatrutide. Symptoms resolved within one week and the Naranjo score of 7 indicated probable causality.

Limits: One person, and the product was never verified to contain retatrutide, so it shows a risk of unverified products and says nothing about the drug as given in trials.

Cited on:Retatrutide

What it found: A retrospective review by a pioneer of starvation physiology on how insulin and the metabolism of fatty acids, glycerol, glucose, lactate, and pyruvate behave in prolonged starvation; it says D-beta-hydroxybutyrate fuels the brain during starvation and may have therapeutic value when energy supply is reduced, such as stroke, heart insufficiency, and some mitochondrial disorders.

Limits: A personal, narrative review whose abstract gives no data, so I use it for the mechanism, not for numbers.

Cited on:Fasting: my monthly 3-day water and broth fast

What it found: Randomized, double-blind trial with a 6-week placebo run-in and 12 weeks of 300 mg/day standardized Bacopa extract in 54 adults aged 65 or older (48 completed). Delayed word recall and Stroop performance improved versus placebo; other tests, mood, and blood pressure did not change; adverse events were few (9 Bacopa, 10 placebo), mainly stomach upset.

Limits: Forty-eight completers in one older-adult group, with several outcomes tested and no effect on many of them.

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: IMPROVE-IT randomized 18,144 patients hospitalized for an acute coronary syndrome to simvastatin 40 mg plus ezetimibe 10 mg or simvastatin plus placebo for a median 6 years. Time-weighted LDL-C was 53.7 versus 69.5 mg/dL, and the 7-year primary endpoint rate was 32.7% versus 34.7% (HR 0.936, 95% CI 0.89 to 0.99).

Limits: The benefit was modest (2.0 percentage points over 7 years), it came from people after an acute coronary syndrome on simvastatin 40 mg, and Merck funded the trial.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Meta-analysis of 15 prospective studies (24 cohort samples, 474,684 participants, followed 6.9 to 25 years, 16,067 events). Short sleep went with more coronary heart disease (relative risk 1.48) and stroke (1.15) but not total cardiovascular disease (1.03); long sleep went with more coronary heart disease (1.38), stroke (1.65), and total cardiovascular disease (1.41).

Limits: Sleep was self-reported by questionnaire and the studies were observational, so the abstract does not claim sleep duration causes these events.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Meta-analysis of 10 studies (13 cohorts, 107,756 participants, 3,586 new cases of type 2 diabetes, follow-up 4.2 to 32 years). Short sleep (about 5 to 6 hours or less) had a relative risk of 1.28 and long sleep (more than 8 to 9 hours) 1.48; trouble staying asleep carried the highest risk at 1.84.

Limits: Observational cohorts with self-reported sleep and significant heterogeneity, so the associations may reflect other conditions rather than sleep itself.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Meta-analysis of 16 prospective studies (27 cohort samples, 1,382,999 participants, 112,566 deaths). Short sleep carried a pooled relative risk of death of 1.12 and long sleep 1.30, with no sign of publication bias but significant heterogeneity for long sleep.

Limits: Pools self-reported sleep from observational cohorts, so it cannot show that long sleep causes death, and the abstract does not say where in the range risk is lowest.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Case report of one man with long-standing type 1 diabetes given genetically modified (CRISPR-Cas12b and lentiviral) allogeneic donor islet cells in the forearm muscle with no immunosuppressive drugs. At 12 weeks there was no immune response against the cells, C-peptide showed stable glucose-responsive insulin secretion, and there were four adverse events, none serious or related to the study drug.

Limits: One person followed for 12 weeks in this report, and the abstract does not say whether he stopped insulin.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: A 2026 NEJM letter from the same group reporting longer follow-up of the hypoimmune islet transplant; the PubMed record lists it as a letter with no abstract.

Limits: I could confirm the letter exists but not read its text, so I quote no follow-up length or results from it.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: CDC page reporting 919,032 cardiovascular disease deaths in 2023 (about 1 in 3 US deaths, one every 34 seconds) and 371,506 coronary heart disease deaths in 2022; heart disease is the leading cause of death for men, women, and most racial and ethnic groups.

Limits: A public-health summary page; its date was displayed as October 24, 2024 but was not labeled as a last-reviewed date, and CDC and AHA counts differ slightly because they define the category differently.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: FDA-approved label for Nuvigil (armodafinil), a DEA Schedule IV drug indicated to improve wakefulness in adults with excessive sleepiness from obstructive sleep apnea, narcolepsy, or shift work disorder. It lists 150 mg to 250 mg once a day in the morning for sleep apnea or narcolepsy and 150 mg about one hour before a work shift for shift work disorder, an apparent terminal half-life of about 15 hours, and placebo-controlled adverse reactions of headache 17% versus 9%, nausea 7% versus 3%, dizziness 5% versus 2%, and insomnia 5% versus 1%. It warns of serious rash, DRESS, angioedema, psychiatric symptoms, and reduced effectiveness of steroidal contraceptives during treatment and for one month after stopping.

Limits: A drug label, not a study; DailyMed lists this May 7, 2025 posting as current, and the label text itself reads Revised 12/2022.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil), Body, fitness, and imaging tests, The companies behind what I take

What it found: Interim analysis (data cutoff April 20, 2026) of the single-arm, registrational AZUR-1 trial of dostarlimab 500 mg every 3 weeks for 9 cycles: 154 patients enrolled, median follow-up 26.3 months, and 144 with at least 12 months of follow-up. Investigator-assessed sustained clinical complete response at 12 months was 68%, and 76% counting pathologic complete responses; grade 3 or higher immune-mediated adverse events occurred in 3%.

Limits: An interim, single-arm analysis published ahead of print; the investigator-assessed rate is higher than the FDA's independent central review rate (47%), which the authors say was less mature.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Phase 2 study of six months of dostarlimab in 117 patients with stage I to III mismatch repair-deficient tumors. In the rectal cohort 49 patients completed treatment and all had a clinical complete response, and 37 had a sustained response at 12 months; across both cohorts 82 of the 103 who completed treatment avoided surgery. Two-year recurrence-free survival was 92% (95% CI 86 to 99), with median follow-up for recurrence of 20.0 months.

Limits: Single-arm, with a median follow-up for recurrence of 20.0 months, so late recurrences and the long-term cure rate are not yet known.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Phase 2 study of six months of dostarlimab every 3 weeks in mismatch repair-deficient stage II or III rectal cancer. All 12 patients who finished treatment with at least 6 months of follow-up had a clinical complete response (95% CI 74 to 100), with follow-up of 6 to 25 months and no adverse events of grade 3 or higher.

Limits: Twelve patients followed 6 to 25 months, so it cannot show how long the responses last.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: NICHE-2, a single-arm phase 2 trial of neoadjuvant immunotherapy before surgery in 115 patients with locally advanced mismatch repair-deficient colon cancer. Of 111 patients in the efficacy analysis, 109 (98%) had a pathological response and 75 (68%) had a pathological complete response, and no patient had recurrence at a median follow-up of 26 months.

Limits: Single-arm with a median follow-up of just over two years, and treatment was given before planned surgery, so it shows tumor kill, not a surgery-free cure.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Phase 3, double-blind trial of 386 adults with at least two prior non-melanoma skin cancers given 500 mg nicotinamide twice daily or placebo for 12 months. New non-melanoma skin cancers were 23 percent lower (95% CI 4 to 38, P = 0.02); basal-cell carcinoma 20 percent lower (P = 0.12), squamous-cell carcinoma 30 percent lower (P = 0.05); no benefit persisted after stopping.

Limits: High-risk adults only, 12 months of treatment, and nicotinamide is a different molecule from NR or NMN, so the result does not transfer to them. Publicly funded (NHMRC).

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Meta-analysis of 22 randomized trials with 721 men and women (mean age 57 to 70) doing resistance training 2 to 3 days a week for 7 to 52 weeks. Creatine added 1.37 kg of lean tissue mass (95% CI 0.97 to 1.76) and small strength gains (chest press SMD 0.35, leg press SMD 0.24).

Limits: Includes small trials with varied protocols, and the abstract does not report doses or mechanisms.

Cited on:Creatine

What it found: Nine competitive cyclists rode 90 minutes at 70% of peak oxygen uptake and then did a time trial under four drink conditions, including L-tyrosine at 25 mg/kg. Time-trial times were 32.6 minutes with tyrosine alone and 34.4 minutes with placebo, and the authors concluded tyrosine did not improve cycling time-trial performance.

Limits: Nine cyclists and one exercise test, with 25 mg/kg drinks every 30 minutes rather than the single large doses of the stress trials, so it does not rule out an effect at those doses.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: Individual-patient meta-analysis of 26 statin trials (39,612 people in 5 trials of more versus less intensive therapy, 129,526 in 21 trials of statin versus control). Each 1.0 mmol/L LDL reduction cut major vascular events by 22% (RR 0.78, 95% CI 0.76 to 0.80) and all-cause mortality by 10% (RR 0.90), with no effect on cancer incidence (RR 1.00).

Limits: The abstract reports mortality and cancer outcomes but not muscle or liver side effects, and the trials were mostly in people already at elevated risk.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ, Cardiovascular disease, explained, Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Double-blind trial of 88 Chinese women with fatty liver disease for 12 weeks: an Asian-adapted Mediterranean diet with C15:0 (31), the same diet without C15:0 (28), or habitual diet (29). Weight fell 4.0, 3.4, and 1.5 kg and liver fat fell 33%, 30%, and 10%; C15:0 added a further LDL-cholesterol reduction and raised Bifidobacterium adolescentis.

Limits: The diet, not C15:0, drove most of the benefit, the abstract gives no numbers for the LDL change, the record does not say who supplied the C15:0, and it is 12 weeks in women of one ethnic group.

Cited on:fatty15 (C15:0)

What it found: Randomized three-period crossover study in 24 healthy adults comparing two Theracurmin products with unformulated curcumin powder: median time to peak was 1.5 to 3 hours versus 8 hours, and exposure ratios versus powder were 18.4 to 20.5 for peak concentration and 35.9 to 42.6 for AUC.

Limits: Twenty-four healthy adults and blood levels only, and the study was sponsored by Handok, Inc., which employs one author (full text, Funding and Conflict of interest sections).

Cited on:Theracurmin HP

What it found: HART-D randomized adults with type 2 diabetes (mean age 55.8, baseline HbA1c 7.7%) to aerobic, resistance, or combined training or a control group. Versus control, HbA1c fell 0.34 percentage points with combined training (95% CI -0.64 to -0.03, P = .03) but not significantly with aerobic (-0.24) or resistance training alone (-0.16).

Limits: Only the combined group reached significance, and the HbA1c change is modest, so it supports combining exercise types more than any single type.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Regulatory news item reporting that the FDA reversed its 2022 position after a citizen petition and an August 2024 lawsuit by the Natural Products Association, accepting evidence that NMN was sold as a dietary supplement as early as 2017.

Limits: A secondary consultancy report that does not link the FDA letter and does not address NMN status in 2026.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Systematic review of 26 randomized trials with 2,250 participants: for all-cause mortality (7 trials, 1,371 participants) the risk ratio was 0.68 (95% CI 0.45 to 1.03), short-term functional outcomes were modest or unclear, and adverse events were not increased; the authors say concerns about risk of bias and plausibility mean stronger evidence is needed.

Limits: Heart failure with reduced ejection fraction only, and the mortality interval crosses 1, so it does not show a clear benefit.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: Registry record (last update posted May 1, 2025): University College London's UK-only phase 3 ASPro-PD trial of ambroxol, a drug licensed for respiratory conditions in many European countries, is recruiting, started February 25, 2025, plans 330 participants with known GBA1 status (positive or negative), has an estimated primary completion of February 2029, and its primary outcome is change in MDS-UPDRS Parts I to III total score to Week 104.

Limits: A registry listing with no results, last updated in 2025, and it does not say how many GBA carriers it enrolls.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Registry record, last updated June 4, 2026: Eisai's phase 3 AHEAD 3-45 trial of lecanemab in preclinical Alzheimer's disease started July 14, 2020, is active but not recruiting with 1,400 estimated, and lists an estimated primary completion of December 21, 2028; the A45 primary outcome is change in the PACC5 cognitive score at Week 216.

Limits: A registry listing with no results, and estimated dates move.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Registry record, last updated November 2, 2026: BlueRock Therapeutics' phase 3 exPDite-2 trial of bemdaneprocel is recruiting, started June 17, 2025, plans 102 participants, has an estimated primary completion of October 2028, and its primary outcome is change in ON-time without troublesome dyskinesia from baseline to Week 78.

Limits: A registry listing with no results, and estimated dates move.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Registry record, last updated November 5, 2026: Roche's phase 3 prasinezumab trial (Prothena Biosciences is a collaborator) is recruiting, started November 24, 2025, plans 900 participants, has an estimated primary completion of June 30, 2029, and its primary outcome is time to confirmed motor progression on MDS-UPDRS Part III up to at least Week 104.

Limits: A registry listing with no results, and estimated dates move.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Registry record, last updated July 10, 2026: SPARX3 (Northwestern University, with the University of Pittsburgh and the Parkinson Study Group) is active, not recruiting, with 370 enrolled since August 30, 2021, an estimated primary completion of July 31, 2027, and a primary outcome of change in MDS-UPDRS Part III motor score at 12 months.

Limits: A registry listing, not results, so it shows the trial exists and when it is expected to finish, not whether exercise helped.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Registry record, last updated January 21, 2026: Lilly's phase 3 TRAILBLAZER-ALZ 3 trial of donanemab in preclinical Alzheimer's disease started August 27, 2021, is active but not recruiting with 2,996 estimated, and lists an estimated primary completion of November 2027 for time to clinical progression on the Clinical Dementia Rating.

Limits: A registry listing with no results, and the record was last updated in January 2026, so a later change would not show here.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Registry record, last updated September 25, 2026: a Roche phase 3 trial of trontinemab in early symptomatic Alzheimer's disease, active but not recruiting, started September 17, 2025 with 1,101 enrolled, an estimated primary completion of February 16, 2028, and a primary outcome of change in CDR-SB at Week 72.

Limits: A registry listing with no results; I opened only this one record, so I cannot describe the companion phase 3 trial from a record I read.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Registry record (last update posted October 27, 2026): Amgen's olpasiran outcomes trial, 7,297 enrolled, status active but not recruiting, primary completion estimated March 31, 2028.

Limits: A registry entry, not a result; the estimated date can move.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Registry record (last update posted May 1, 2026): a double-blind, placebo-controlled outcomes trial of inclisiran in people with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, 16,124 enrolled, status active but not recruiting, primary completion estimated October 2026, sponsored by the University of Oxford with TIMI and Novartis.

Limits: A registry entry, not a result; the record did not state whether results are posted, and I found no reported outcome data as of November 2026.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Placebo-controlled study of whether L-tyrosine improves updating of working memory in an N-back task. Tyrosine helped performance in the harder 2-back condition but not the easier 1-back condition.

Limits: The abstract reports no sample size or dose (the full text reports 22 young women and one 2.0 g dose), and a single working-memory task in lab volunteers does not show a real-world effect.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: Double-blind placebo-controlled trial testing whether a DRD2 gene variant (C957T, rs6277) predicts response to tyrosine on a stop-signal task and an N-back task. People with the T/T genotype, linked to lower striatal dopamine, gained more from tyrosine than C/C people.

Limits: The abstract reports no sample size or dose, and a genotype-by-treatment result like this needs replication.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: Systematic review of how to measure resting metabolic rate by indirect calorimetry: a 10-minute test, discarding the first 5 minutes, with a coefficient of variation under 10% across the remaining 5 minutes, gave accurate readings.

Limits: A 2006 evidence-analysis review of test technique that does not say how well one reading predicts anything about health.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Eight-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 140 overweight adults taking 100, 300, or 1,000 mg/day of NR. Whole blood NAD+ rose 22, 51, and 142 percent; no serious adverse events or flushing, and adverse events did not differ from placebo.

Limits: Eight weeks, a biomarker outcome rather than health outcomes, and funded by ChromaDex, which employs two authors and licenses NR intellectual property from a third.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Body composition substudy of the phase 2 type 2 diabetes trial, with 189 participants enrolled and total fat mass measured by DXA at 36 weeks. Fat mass fell 26.1% on retatrutide 8 mg (pooled) and 23.2% on 12 mg versus 4.5% on placebo and 2.6% on dulaglutide, and the authors report that the proportion of lean mass loss to weight loss was similar to other obesity treatments.

Limits: Only 155 people had a baseline DXA scan and 103 completed treatment, the study ran 36 weeks in people with type 2 diabetes, funded by Eli Lilly, and the abstract gives no lean-mass numbers.

Cited on:Retatrutide

What it found: Review of NAD+ as a coenzyme for redox reactions and for sirtuins, CD38, and PARPs, with roles in metabolism, DNA repair, and immune function. Describes a gradual decline in tissue NAD+ with age in model organisms including rodents and humans, and says whether repletion helps aging humans remains open.

Limits: A narrative review, much of it based on animal data, and it does not test any supplement in people.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Retrospective test of seven bioimpedance equations against DXA in 2,134 patients with BMI of 30 or higher. The Roubenoff equation for fat-free mass was within 10% of DXA in 75.7% of class I and II patients and 83.3% of class III patients, with 95% limits of agreement of -9.42 to 5.49 kg and -8.16 to 6.52 kg.

Limits: Only people with obesity from a clinical cohort, so it says little about lean or athletic adults.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Review of 35 case reports and 2 case series covering 76 cases of yoga-related adverse events. Musculoskeletal events were most common (35.5%), then nervous system (18.4%) and eye (11.8%) events. Fifteen cases (19.7%) recovered fully and 1 (1.3%) died.

Limits: Published case reports cannot give how often injuries happen, only what kinds have been reported.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Meta-analysis of 8 randomized trials with 319 participants. Yoga had small short-term effects on anxiety versus no treatment (standardized mean difference -0.43, 95% CI -0.74 to -0.11) and larger effects versus active comparators (-0.86), but no effects in people with diagnosed anxiety disorders.

Limits: Eight small trials, and the authors call the evidence preliminary and say only 3 trials reported safety data.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Randomized trial in 80 mildly anxious adults: 200 mg of Rhodiola rosea extract twice daily for 14 days versus no treatment. The rhodiola group reported lower anxiety, stress, anger, confusion, and depression and better total mood, while cognitive performance did not differ.

Limits: No placebo control, self-reported outcomes, 14 days, and the abstract gives no p-values or effect sizes.

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: European consensus (EWGSOP2) that makes low muscle strength the key characteristic of sarcopenia, confirms it with low muscle quantity or quality, marks poor physical performance as severe, updates the case-finding algorithm, and provides cut-off points.

Limits: A consensus statement for older adults; the grip, chair-stand, and muscle-mass cut-offs used on the page come from its full text (PMC6322506, Table 3), not the abstract.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Two phase 3 trials of oral semaglutide in 3,808 people with amyloid-confirmed early Alzheimer's disease (evoke 1,855, evoke+ 1,953) at 566 sites. Neither met its primary endpoint: CDR-SB worsened by 2.3 on semaglutide and 2.3 on placebo in evoke (difference -0.08, 95% CI -0.35 to 0.20, p=0.57), and both trials were discontinued for negative clinical outcome.

Limits: Funded by Novo Nordisk, and it tested oral semaglutide in people who already had symptoms, so it does not address prevention or other GLP-1 drugs.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Double-blind trial of 115 adults with metabolic syndrome given 75 g or 150 g of blueberries a day or a matched placebo for 6 months. At 150 g, flow-mediated dilatation improved by 1.45% (95% CI 0.83 to 2.1) and augmentation index fell 2.24%; the primary outcome, insulin resistance, did not change, nor did blood pressure, and 75 g had no effect.

Limits: The primary endpoint was null, the benefits were in secondary markers of artery function, and it ran 6 months in people with metabolic syndrome.

Cited on:Superfoods, Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Twelve-week randomized controlled study at 42 sleep research facilities in North America of 254 permanent or rotating night shift workers with shift work disorder given armodafinil 150 mg or placebo 30 to 60 minutes before each night shift. Mean sleep latency on the MSLT rose from 2.3 to 5.3 minutes on armodafinil versus 2.4 to 2.8 minutes on placebo (P<.001), and 79% of armodafinil patients versus 59% of placebo patients improved on the clinical condition rating (P=.001).

Limits: One dose (150 mg) in people diagnosed with shift work disorder, so it does not speak to healthy workers or other doses, and the final mean sleep latency of 5.3 minutes shows patients were still sleepy.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil)

What it found: ASPEN consensus statement for hospitalized adults and children that defines refeeding syndrome as a 10% to 20% (mild), 20% to 30% (moderate), or over 30% (severe) drop in serum phosphorus, potassium, or magnesium within 5 days of reintroducing calories, with organ dysfunction or thiamin deficiency marking severe cases.

Limits: A consensus definition for hospital patients, meant as a basis for research, so it does not give the risk after a short fast in a healthy adult.

Cited on:Fasting: my monthly 3-day water and broth fast

What it found: Meta-analysis of 8 randomized trials of turmeric extract at about 1,000 mg/day of curcumin: pain on a visual analog scale was lower than with placebo (mean difference -2.04, 95% CI -2.85 to -1.24, 3 trials) and so was the WOMAC score (-15.36, 95% CI -26.9 to -3.77, 4 trials), while pain did not differ from pain medication (5 trials).

Limits: Few, small trials of mixed preparations, the authors themselves say the number and quality of trials are not enough for definitive conclusions, and the first author lists an affiliation with Daily Manufacturing, Inc.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP

What it found: Trade profile of the launch of fatty15 as a San Diego-based brand led by Stephanie Venn-Watson, whose Navy dolphin health research led to the company's C15:0 work.

Limits: A launch-era trade article that does not give the company's founding year, its other founders, or any license terms with the Navy.

Cited on:fatty15 (C15:0), The companies behind what I take

What it found: NELSON randomized 13,195 men aged 50 to 74 to CT screening or no screening, with at least 10 years of follow-up. Lung-cancer mortality was 2.50 versus 3.30 per 1,000 person-years, a rate ratio of 0.76 (95% CI 0.61 to 0.94) at 10 years; in the 2,594 women the rate ratio was 0.67 (95% CI 0.38 to 1.14).

Limits: The primary analysis was in men, and the result in women was not statistically significant.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: CodeBreaK 200 randomized 345 patients with previously treated KRAS G12C-mutated lung cancer to sotorasib (171) or docetaxel (174). Median progression-free survival was 5.6 versus 4.5 months (hazard ratio 0.66, 95% CI 0.51 to 0.86, p = 0.0017), with serious treatment-related adverse events in 11% versus 23%.

Limits: The abstract reports a gain of about one month in progression-free survival and no overall survival result, so this is slowing, not remission or cure.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Patient-organization blog post dated February 6, 2025, reporting that two companies had received FDA go-aheads: United Therapeutics' trial would start with six patients and expand to 50, for adults aged 55 to 70 on dialysis for at least six months, while eGenesis's study would be three patients under an expanded access protocol.

Limits: A secondary blog post relaying news coverage, with no exact clearance dates, so the trial terms should be checked against the sponsors and ClinicalTrials.gov.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: Primer describing type 2 diabetes as closely tied to obesity, with obesity, poor diet, inactivity, and genetics all contributing, insulin resistance and insufficient insulin secretion as the core defects, and at least six other abnormalities also involved; higher risks of microvascular and macrovascular complications follow.

Limits: A 2015 narrative primer with no new data, so newer drug and remission evidence is not in it.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Study of 21 cadets in a demanding combat training course: 10 received five daily doses of a protein-rich drink containing 2 g of tyrosine and 11 a carbohydrate-rich drink with the same calories. On day 6 the tyrosine group did better on a memory task and a tracking task and had lower systolic blood pressure, with no effect on mood.

Limits: Only 21 people, a military setting, and tyrosine was given inside a protein drink compared with a carbohydrate drink, so it is not a clean one-ingredient comparison.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: Endocrine Society guideline: no clinical trial evidence supports routine screening for 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the general population, and the panel suggests against routine 25(OH)D testing in all populations it considered or in the absence of established indications.

Limits: A guideline about disease prevention in people without a known deficiency, so it does not cover testing for a symptom, a bone or kidney condition, or a malabsorption problem.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Phase 2 double-blind trial of 663 adults with uncontrolled hypertension on indapamide, amlodipine, or olmesartan, randomized to a single 600 mg subcutaneous dose of zilebesiran or placebo. At 3 months 24-hour systolic pressure was lower than placebo by 12.1 mm Hg (indapamide), 9.7 (amlodipine), and 4.5 (olmesartan); hyperkalemia was 5.5% versus 1.8% and acute kidney failure 4.9% versus 1.5%.

Limits: A 3-month blood pressure result with no heart or stroke outcomes, and with more hyperkalemia and kidney events than placebo.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: MESA cohort of 6,722 people without clinical cardiovascular disease followed a median 3.8 years (162 coronary events). Compared with a calcium score of 0, scores of 101 to 300 raised adjusted coronary event risk 7.73-fold and scores above 300 raised it 9.67-fold, and adding the score to standard risk factors improved prediction.

Limits: Short follow-up with few events, and the abstract does not show that screening with calcium scores leads to better outcomes.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Company page offering a DEXA body composition scan (about 8 minutes), VO2max testing (about 15 minutes), RMR metabolic analysis (about 15 minutes), and blood biomarker panels across a network in 41 states, with locations independently owned and operated.

Limits: A seller's own marketing page checked on the date shown; it lists no prices.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Mean 15-year follow-up of the Diabetes Prevention Program cohort. Diabetes incidence was 27% lower with lifestyle intervention (HR 0.73, 95% CI 0.65 to 0.83) and 18% lower with metformin (HR 0.82, 0.72 to 0.93) than placebo; cumulative incidence at year 15 was 55%, 56%, and 62%, and microvascular prevalence did not differ significantly (11.3% lifestyle, 13.0% metformin, 12.4% placebo).

Limits: The effect is a delay, not an escape (more than half of every group had diabetes by year 15), and the microvascular result was null overall.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Follow-up of the Diabetes Prevention Program cohort. During the 2.8-year trial, incidence was 4.8 (lifestyle), 7.8 (metformin), and 11.0 (placebo) per 100 person-years; afterward it was similar across groups (5.9, 4.9, and 5.6). Over 10 years, diabetes incidence was 34% lower with lifestyle and 18% lower with metformin than placebo, and the lifestyle group lost then partly regained weight.

Limits: The years after the randomized phase are observational follow-up, so later comparisons are not a clean randomized contest.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Stars and Stripes report on the Army's Holistic Health and Fitness field manual: soldiers should get 7 to 9 hours of sleep in every 24 hours, adapting to sleep loss is a myth, short infrequent naps can restore alertness when night sleep isn't possible, and with restricted sleep (six hours or less a night) napping plus appropriate doses of caffeine (about 200 mg, in the report's bracketed note) may help sustain performance.

Limits: A news report on the manual, not the manual itself, so wording should be checked against the field manual.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Double-blind randomized trial of 107 healthy men aged 18 to 40 given a single dose of armodafinil 100, 150, 200, or 300 mg, modafinil 200 mg, or placebo at 7:25 PM before a night of sleep loss. All armodafinil doses and modafinil increased wakefulness test latencies and reduced vigilance-task lapses versus placebo (P < 0.0001), and the reported adverse events included abdominal pain, nausea, headache, tachycardia or palpitations, lower mean sleep efficiency, and higher mean blood pressure.

Limits: A single-dose study in healthy men kept awake through a night, so it shows what armodafinil does in sleep loss and says nothing about well-rested people or repeated use.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil)

What it found: Direct Labs category page that lists Ferritin (described as the protein that stores iron in the cells and reflects the amount of iron in the body), an Iron Panel, and CBC (includes Differential And Platelets), described as a screening test for disease states including anemia, leukemia, and inflammatory processes.

Limits: A store category listing; no prices appeared in the captured text, and I did not open each test's own page.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Panel page listing the Comprehensive Wellness Profile (over 50 tests, including lipids and a CBC) along with HbA1c, hs-CRP, homocysteine, and vitamin D (25-hydroxy); a 10- to 12-hour fast is required, and the average processing time of 5 to 7 days is called an estimate, not a guarantee.

Limits: No price was readable in the captured text, and the page does not say who orders or reviews the panel.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Direct Labs category page listing tests including Apolipoprotein B (ApoB), Lipoprotein (a), hs-CRP (C-Reactive Protein) (CRP, hs) (Cardio CRP), Homocysteine, Lipid Panel, standard (Cholesterol Panel), Extended Lipid Profile (lipid panel, ApoB, and Lp(a)), and Cardio IQ Advanced Lipid Panel; the store menu links How It Works, FAQs, and a Lab Locator, and no prices appeared in the text I could read.

Limits: A store category listing; no prices appeared in the captured text, and I did not open each test's own page.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Direct Labs category page listing tests including Hemoglobin A1c with eAG (HgbA1c), Insulin (fasting), Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP), Cystatin C with Glomerular Filtration Rate, Estimated (eGFR), and several diabetes panels.

Limits: A store category listing; no prices appeared in the captured text, and I did not open each test's own page.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Direct Labs category page that lists Estradiol (E2) Hormone, Estradiol (E2), Free, and Estradiol (E2), Ultrasensitive, LC/MS.

Limits: A store category listing; no prices appeared in the captured text, and I did not open each test's own page.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Direct Labs category page listing tests including Cystatin C with Glomerular Filtration Rate, Estimated (eGFR); Albumin (Microalbumin), Random Urine With Creatinine; Creatinine; Kidney Profile (Renal function); and CBC (includes Differential And Platelets).

Limits: A store category listing; no prices appeared in the captured text, and I did not open each test's own page.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Direct Labs category page listing tests including Alanine Aminotransferase (ALT/SGPT), Gamma Glutamyl Transferase (GGT), Hepatic Function Panel (Liver Panel), Uric Acid, Serum, and Apolipoprotein B (ApoB).

Limits: A store category listing; no prices appeared in the captured text, and I did not open each test's own page.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Panel page listing Apolipoprotein B (ApoB), Lipoprotein(a), Homocysteine, Fasting Insulin, Magnesium (RBC), High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein, Ferritin, and CBC and CMP-14; the lab is Quest Diagnostics, and the page says the panel includes access to an optional AI-assisted analysis powered by Grok.

Limits: No price was readable in the captured text, and the page does not say who reviews results.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Direct Labs category page that lists PSA, Total (Prostate Specific Antigen); PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) Free And Total; Testosterone, Total, Males (Adult), Immunoassay; Testosterone, Free; and Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG).

Limits: A store category listing; no prices appeared in the captured text, and I did not open each test's own page.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Test page for OmegaCheck (also named Omega -3 and -6 Fatty Acids), which reports the Omega-3 (EPA + DHA) Index, Omega-6/Omega-3 Ratio, Arachidonic Acid/EPA Ratio, Arachidonic Acid, EPA, and DHA; fasting for 10 to 12 hours is preferred but not required; lab: Quest Diagnostics; average processing time 6 to 8 days, which the page calls an estimate.

Limits: No price was readable in the captured text, and the page does not say who orders or reviews the test.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing, The companies behind what I take

What it found: Direct Labs packages page listing panels including Biohacking Cardiovascular/Heart Health Panel, Biohacking Longevity & Cellular Optimization Panel, Comprehensive Wellness Profile (CWP), General Health Panel (CMP-14 and CBC), Low Carb Diet Vitamin Deficiency Panel, and Men's Health Check Extended.

Limits: A store category listing; no prices appeared in the captured text, and I did not open each test's own page.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Direct Labs category page that lists TSH (Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone), Thyroid Panel with TSH, T4 Free (FT4), and T3 Free (FT3).

Limits: A store category listing; no prices appeared in the captured text, and I did not open each test's own page.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Direct Labs category page that lists Vitamin D, 25 Hydroxy; Vitamin B12 (Cobalamin); Folate, Serum (Folic Acid); and Magnesium, RBC as standalone tests.

Limits: A store category listing; no prices appeared in the captured text, and I did not open each test's own page.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Pilot, randomized, double-blind trial of 41 healthy adults aged 18 to 45 given 1.8 g of Hericium erinaceus. Stroop completion was faster 60 minutes after a single dose (p = 0.005); after 28 days subjective stress showed only a non-significant trend (p = 0.051), with some null results.

Limits: A pilot of 41 young adults, with the authors urging caution and confirmation in larger trials.

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled parallel trial in 40 sedentary men aged 40 to 70 with BMI above 30, taking 1,000 mg NR twice daily (2,000 mg/day) for 12 weeks. NR did not improve insulin sensitivity, glucose metabolism, energy expenditure, lipolysis, or body composition, and no serious adverse events occurred.

Limits: A null result in 40 obese men at one dose for 12 weeks, so it cannot rule out effects in other groups.

Cited on:NAD+, Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Nine healthy adults were studied after normal sleep and after 4 hours of sleep (about 226 versus 454 minutes). After one short night, insulin-clamp glucose production rose (4.4 versus 3.6 umol/kg lean mass/min, P=0.017), glucose disposal fell (32.5 versus 40.7), and the glucose infusion rate needed fell about 25% (P=0.001); basal glucose and insulin did not differ.

Limits: Nine people, a single night, and a lab clamp study, so it shows a short-term mechanism and not what months of short sleep do.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: PURE cohort of 126,359 adults aged 35 to 70 in 17 countries followed a median 7.8 years. Mortality hazard ratios were 1.27 (95% CI 1.18 to 1.36), 1.74 (1.60 to 1.90), and 2.54 (2.26 to 2.86) for mild, moderate, and severe FEV1 impairment, with cardiovascular hazard ratios of 1.18, 1.39, and 2.02.

Limits: Observational, with impairment defined against country-specific means, so it shows that low FEV1 marks higher risk, not that improving FEV1 lowers it.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Placebo-controlled trial of 291 adults in rural Qidong, China, who drank a daily broccoli sprout beverage (600 micromol glucoraphanin, 40 micromol sulforaphane) or a placebo for 12 weeks. Urinary excretion of benzene mercapturic acid rose 61% and acrolein mercapturic acid 23% versus placebo; crotonaldehyde did not change.

Limits: It measured excretion biomarkers of pollutant exposure, not illness, in one rural region of China.

Cited on:Superfoods

What it found: Placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind crossover trial in 12 aged men taking 1 g/day of NR for 21 days. NR raised the muscle NAD+ metabolome, lowered circulating inflammatory cytokines, and downregulated mitochondrial gene pathways, but mitochondrial bioenergetics did not change.

Limits: Twelve men over 3 weeks with no strength or function outcomes, and the abstract gives no effect sizes.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Company press release, not peer-reviewed: Lilly calls retatrutide an investigational once-weekly triple hormone receptor agonist and says it plans to submit a Biologics License Application to the FDA in Q1 2027. TRIUMPH-2 (1,152 people with type 2 diabetes and obesity or overweight, 80 weeks) reported weight loss of 12.7% to 20.8% versus 4.0% on placebo and A1C changes of -1.4% to -1.6% from a 7.7% baseline versus -0.2%; diarrhea ran 27.4% to 33.6% versus 13.2% on placebo and dysesthesia 4.5% to 7.3% versus 0.7%.

Limits: A company topline release with the efficacy estimand and no peer review; Lilly's own investor page answered 403 to our checks, so the link goes to the same release as reposted on BioSpace.

Cited on:Retatrutide, Blood sugar and diabetes, Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes, The companies behind what I take

What it found: Current FDA label for tirzepatide, a related GIP and GLP-1 drug (label revised August 2026). Its warnings include severe gastrointestinal adverse reactions (section 5.2), acute kidney injury due to volume depletion (5.3), and hypoglycemia when combined with insulin secretagogues such as sulfonylureas (5.7), where hypoglycemia was 10.3% versus 2.1% without a sulfonylurea.

Limits: The label is for tirzepatide, not retatrutide, which is investigational and adds a glucagon receptor effect, so it shows what a neighboring drug warns about and not what retatrutide's label would say.

Cited on:Fasting: my monthly 3-day water and broth fast, Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Collaborative analysis of 102 prospective studies (698,782 people, 52,765 vascular outcomes). Diabetes roughly doubled coronary heart disease risk (HR 2.00, 95% CI 1.83 to 2.19) and raised ischemic stroke risk (2.27); fasting glucose showed no significant link to risk between 3.90 and 5.59 mmol/L but risk rose above that.

Limits: Observational; it tracks diabetes and glucose as risk markers and cannot separate their effect from related factors like weight and blood pressure.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Blood sugar and diabetes, Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Randomized controlled trial of 120 older adults: aerobic exercise training increased anterior hippocampal volume by 2%, offsetting roughly 1 to 2 years of age-related loss, and improved spatial memory. Higher serum BDNF went with larger hippocampal volume, and volume shrank in the control group.

Limits: A brain-imaging and memory-test result in 120 people, not proof that exercise prevents dementia, and the abstract does not say how long the training lasted.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: PREDIMED, republished in 2018: 7,447 Spanish adults aged 55 to 80 at high cardiovascular risk were assigned a Mediterranean diet with extra-virgin olive oil, a Mediterranean diet with mixed nuts, or a low-fat control diet. Over a median 4.8 years, major cardiovascular events had HR 0.69 (95% CI 0.53 to 0.91) with olive oil and HR 0.72 (0.54 to 0.95) with nuts versus control.

Limits: The original 2013 report was withdrawn after protocol deviations in randomization at some sites, and the trial tests a whole Mediterranean pattern with olive oil or nuts, not olive oil alone.

Cited on:Superfoods, Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Meta-analysis of 123 trials with 613,815 participants. Each 10 mm Hg lower systolic pressure cut major cardiovascular events (RR 0.80, 95% CI 0.77 to 0.83), coronary heart disease (0.83), stroke (0.73), heart failure (0.72), and all-cause mortality (0.87, 0.84 to 0.91).

Limits: Pools trials of drug treatment, so it shows what lowering pressure with medication does, not what diet or exercise alone would do.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Body, fitness, and imaging tests, Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: A regression discontinuity analysis of Welsh health records, using a rule that made people born on or after 2 September 1933 eligible for the zoster vaccine for at least a year (uptake 47.2% versus 0.01% one week either side of the cutoff). Over 7 years vaccination lowered the chance of a new dementia diagnosis by 3.5 percentage points (95% CI 0.6 to 7.1, P = 0.019), a 20.0% relative reduction, with a stronger effect in women than men.

Limits: A natural experiment on health records, not a randomized trial, so it estimates the effect of being eligible for one vaccine in one country and cannot say how it works.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Narrative review of human trials of prolonged water fasting. Fasting for 5 to 20 days raised ketones and produced 2% to 10% weight loss, about two-thirds of it lean mass; blood pressure consistently fell, lipid results were mixed, fasting glucose, insulin, insulin resistance, and HbA1c fell in people with normal glucose but not in people with diabetes, and benefits were gone 3 to 4 months after refeeding. Reported adverse events included metabolic acidosis, headaches, insomnia, and hunger.

Limits: A narrative (not systematic) review of mostly small, uncontrolled trials of 5 to 20 days, so it does not speak to a single 3-day fast repeated monthly.

Cited on:Fasting: my monthly 3-day water and broth fast

What it found: Register-based study of women in England aged 20 to under 30 (13.7 million person-years). Cervical cancer was reduced by 34% (95% CI 25 to 41) in those offered the vaccine at 16 to 18, 62% (52 to 71) at 14 to 16, and 87% (72 to 94) at 12 to 13; grade 3 cervical precancer (CIN3) fell by 39%, 75%, and 97%.

Limits: An observational comparison with unvaccinated cohorts, with follow-up only into the early adult years.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: The home page carries the phrase "Developed by doctors, funded by the Navy," mentions a decade of collaboration with the U.S. Navy, claims third-party validation, and links to Seraphina Therapeutics in the footer.

Limits: Marketing page; it does not describe Seraphina's ownership or say which studies the Navy paid for.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: Names Stephanie Venn-Watson and Eric Venn-Watson as co-founders and co-CEOs, and lists Kim Kamdar (board chair) and Nicholas Schork as co-founders as well.

Limits: Company page; it gives no founding year, headquarters, or parent company.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: Consensus review of genetic studies, more than 200 prospective cohorts, Mendelian randomization studies, and randomized trials covering more than 2 million participants, over 20 million person-years, and over 150,000 cardiovascular events. It found a consistent, dose-dependent, log-linear link between LDL exposure and cardiovascular risk that grows with the duration of exposure, and concluded that LDL causes atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

Limits: A consensus review of other studies, not a new trial; it rests on the quality of the underlying genetic, cohort, and trial data.

Cited on:Keto, Cardiovascular disease, explained, Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Systematic review that included six articles on creatine monohydrate plus HMB. Of the strength studies 1 of 2 showed improvement, of the anaerobic studies 2 of 3, and the one aerobic study showed none, and the 4 muscle-damage studies and 1 hormone study showed no benefit; the authors concluded 3 to 10 g/day of creatine plus 3 g/day of HMB for 1 to 6 weeks may benefit strength and anaerobic performance.

Limits: Only six small, short studies with mixed results, and no meta-analysis pooling.

Cited on:Creatine, HMB

What it found: Whitehall II cohort of 10,308 British civil servants aged 35 to 55 at baseline, followed 17 years. Among people sleeping 6, 7, or 8 hours, a decrease in sleep went with cardiovascular death (hazard ratio 2.4, 95% CI 1.4 to 4.1), and among those sleeping 7 or 8 hours, an increase went with non-cardiovascular death (2.1, 95% CI 1.4 to 3.1); adjustment for existing illness and health behaviors left these largely unchanged.

Limits: Observational, so it cannot show whether a change in sleep caused the deaths or reflected something else, such as developing illness.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: A price-comparison site's description of DirectLabs: no physician or insurance order is required, customers order online and print a requisition from a MyDLS account, Quest Diagnostics is the listed lab with more than 2,000 locations, service is unavailable in Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island, and the company (Direct Laboratory Services, LLC, Mandeville, Louisiana) was founded in 1993 by John Bell.

Limits: A third-party aggregator, not Direct Labs; directlabs.com returned HTTP 403 to my fetcher on every page I tried, so none of this was checked against the company's own FAQ.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: Trade-press profile naming co-founders James Beshara and William Hicks and saying the brand has been selling since launching in March 2020.

Limits: A trade-press article, not a corporate filing; it gives no headquarters, investors, or parent company.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: Meta-analysis in older adults comparing doses of 5 g/day or less versus more than 5 g/day, with or without a 20 g/day loading phase of 5 to 7 days. Creatine plus resistance training beat placebo for lean mass and strength regardless of dose, but when loading studies were excluded it did not beat placebo for chest or leg press strength; taking it only on training days also beat placebo.

Limits: Abstract reports no sample sizes or effect sizes, and subgroup comparisons rest on few trials.

Cited on:Creatine

What it found: Science Digest item on the 2009 JAMA meta-analysis of 33 studies: low fitness (under 7.9 METs) carried a 70% higher risk of premature death than high fitness (10.9 METs or more) and a 56% higher risk of heart and cardiovascular events, and each 1-MET gain roughly matches a 1 km/h faster running speed.

Limits: A summary page, not the paper, and the date is the page's 'updated' date, not the original posting date.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: A long training episode whose chapter list includes 'How sauna use improves cardiorespiratory fitness' and 'Why heat exposure supports resistance training, unlike cold.'

Limits: I read only the chapter titles in the publisher's feed, so I can say the topic is covered but not what was said or by whom.

Cited on:Sauna, Cold plunge

What it found: Science Digest item on a Mayo Clinic Proceedings study of more than 58,000 UK Biobank participants aged 40 to 69 who did a submaximal stationary bicycle test: fitness and risk of death were linearly related, and the test predicted death beyond conventional risk factors, especially in people with few of them.

Limits: A summary page that gives no hazard ratios and no authors; the date is the page's 'updated' date, not the original posting date.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Rhonda Patrick's fasting topic page (last updated July 11, 2026): it separates time-restricted eating, alternate-day approaches, prolonged fasting (over 48 hours, typically 48 to 96 hours in research), and the fasting-mimicking diet, says prolonged fasting may be more appropriate under a physician's guidance, and notes that epidemiological studies of fasting cannot show cause and effect.

Limits: A topic page with no named author, and it gives no human outcome numbers for prolonged fasting.

Cited on:Fasting: my monthly 3-day water and broth fast

What it found: Systematic review of four commonly used resting metabolic rate equations (Harris-Benedict, Mifflin-St Jeor, Owen, and WHO/FAO/UNU) in healthy nonobese and obese adults: Mifflin-St Jeor was most likely to estimate RMR within 10% of the measured value.

Limits: The abstract gives no percentages, and it covers healthy adults, not trained athletes or people on very low-carbohydrate diets.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Trade-press report of Auxilium Biotechnologies' announcement that its AMP-1 orbital bioprinter made kidney and liver tissue, cartilage, and 28 nerve-repair implants on one flight, with cells and models from Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine; the samples returned to Earth on June 17, 2026, aboard SpaceX's CRS-34 mission.

Limits: Based on the company's announcement, with no tissue-quality data, and the 'first' claim is Auxilium's.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: PRISMA review (January 2010 to October 2025) of 113 studies, 33 human (28 randomized) and 80 rodent. Oral NR and NMN reliably raised NAD-related metabolites and were generally well tolerated, but functional, metabolic, and vascular effects were inconsistent or null; no eligible outcome trials tested IV or intramuscular NAD+.

Limits: Pools small, varied trials, and the authors call clinical effectiveness for anti-aging or wellness inconclusive.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: ACSM guidance: at least 30 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise on 5 or more days a week, or at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise on 3 or more days; resistance work for each major muscle group on 2 to 3 days a week; and breaking up long sitting with short bouts of movement.

Limits: A consensus position stand for apparently healthy adults, so it sets minimums and does not say how to optimize for an already trained person.

Cited on:Training

What it found: DIETFITS randomized 609 overweight adults to a healthy low-fat or healthy low-carbohydrate diet for 12 months; weight loss was 5.3 kg versus 6.0 kg, a difference of 0.7 kg (95% CI -0.2 to 1.6) that was not statistically significant. Neither genotype pattern nor baseline insulin secretion predicted who did better on which diet.

Limits: A comparison of low-fat versus low-carbohydrate eating that does not report ketone levels, and 21% of participants (128 of 609) did not finish the 12 months.

Cited on:Keto

What it found: Ten men with normal semen took two 15-minute sauna sessions a week at 80 to 90°C for 3 months. Sperm count and motility were strongly impaired at the end (P < 0.001), and the effects were reversed 6 months after stopping.

Limits: Ten men, no control group, and no men with abnormal semen at baseline, so it shows a reversible effect in healthy men but not how it plays out in men with fertility problems.

Cited on:Sauna

What it found: Phase 3 trial of 938 adults with BMI of 27 or higher and type 2 diabetes (HbA1c 7% to 10%) given tirzepatide 10 mg, 15 mg, or placebo once weekly for 72 weeks. Weight fell 12.8% on 10 mg, 14.7% on 15 mg, and 3.2% on placebo; fewer than 5% stopped for adverse events, and two deaths in the 10 mg group were judged unrelated.

Limits: A weight trial funded by Eli Lilly that did not test remission, and it ran 72 weeks.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Meta-analysis of 65 studies (516,325 participants without diabetes). Highest versus lowest HOMA-IR carried a coronary heart disease RR of 1.64 (95% CI 1.35 to 2.00); fasting insulin alone gave RR 1.12 (0.92 to 1.37), which was not significant.

Limits: Pooled observational studies, so the numbers are associations, and the fasting-insulin result had a confidence interval that crossed 1.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Blood sugar and diabetes, Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: A letter that says it addresses several discrepancies found across multiple publications on HMB free acid and ATP supplementation. The PubMed record states that the authors declare no competing interests.

Limits: A letter, not a study; its full text names the three papers in question, all from one registered study, and the 2014 HMB free acid trial is one of them.

Cited on:HMB

What it found: Comparative study of 16 active young men (8 per group) over six sessions in 14 days: four to six 30-second all-out cycling sprints with 4 minutes of recovery versus 90 to 120 minutes of continuous cycling. Time-trial performance and muscle cytochrome c oxidase activity improved similarly in both groups, with about 2.5 hours of sprint training versus about 10.5 hours, and about 90% less total work.

Limits: Two weeks, 16 young active men, and the abstract does not say assignment was randomized, so it shows early adaptation only.

Cited on:Training

What it found: Blinded cross-sectional study at 30 sites (343 in the primary analysis: 223 with a synucleinopathy, 120 controls). Skin biopsy found phosphorylated alpha-synuclein in 92.7% (89/96) of people with Parkinson's disease, 98.2% (54/55) with multiple system atrophy, 96.0% (48/50) with dementia with Lewy bodies, and 3.3% (4/120) of controls.

Limits: People who already had a diagnosis and controls, tested once, so it does not show how well a skin biopsy predicts disease in someone without symptoms; the lead author holds stock options in CND Life Sciences, whose staff provided logistical support.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Three-group trial in 25 sedentary men (sprint intervals n=9, moderate continuous training n=10, controls n=6) over 12 weeks at 3 sessions a week; the sprint group did three 20-second all-out cycle sprints within a 10-minute session, versus 45 minutes of cycling. Peak oxygen uptake rose about 19% in both training groups (SIT 32 to 38, MICT 34 to 40 mL/kg/min) and insulin sensitivity improved similarly (SIT 4.9 to 7.5, MICT 5.0 to 6.7).

Limits: Very small groups of sedentary men, and the abstract does not say allocation was randomized, so it cannot speak to women, trained people, or long-term results.

Cited on:Training

What it found: SuppCo, a supplement-rating site, reports buying 11 products (5 powders and 6 gummies) off the shelf and sending them to an unnamed ISO 17025-accredited lab. Four of the six gummies had trace or no detectable creatine, two gummies measured 6.3 g against a 5 g label serving and 4.59 g against a 4.5 g label serving, and all five powders passed with purity of 98 to 101%.

Limits: Six gummies from one site's own selection, the lab and method are not named in the article, I could not read the linked PDF report, and the article promotes SuppCo's own TrustScore ratings and states no funding.

Cited on:Creatine

What it found: Meta-analysis of 23 randomized trials with 1,357 participants lasting at least 12 weeks. At six months remission (HbA1c under 6.5% or fasting glucose under 7.0 mmol/L, with or without medication) occurred in 76 of 133 (57%) on low-carbohydrate diets versus 41 of 131 (31%) on control diets (risk difference 0.32, 95% CI 0.17 to 0.47); at 12 months remission data were sparse and weight, triglyceride, and insulin-sensitivity gains diminished. Evidence was moderate to low certainty.

Limits: Remission here counts people still on medication in some analyses, only eight studies had six-month remission data, and the 12-month picture is thin.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Ninety-nine twin pairs discordant for Parkinson's disease, from a World War II veteran twin cohort, with solvent exposure estimated by raters blind to case status. Trichloroethylene exposure was associated with Parkinson's disease (OR 6.1, 95% CI 1.2 to 33, p = 0.034), perchloroethylene showed a trend (OR 10.5, 95% CI 0.97 to 113, p = 0.053), and the authors say replication is needed.

Limits: Small, with very wide confidence intervals, and exposure was estimated from work and hobby histories decades later.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Cluster-randomized trial begun in 1986: 33 clinics in Da Qing, China assigned 577 adults with impaired glucose tolerance to control or 6 years of diet, exercise, or both, with follow-up up to 30 years (540 of 576 assessed). The combined intervention delayed diabetes by a median 3.96 years and lowered cardiovascular events (HR 0.74, 95% CI 0.59 to 0.92), microvascular complications (0.65), cardiovascular deaths (0.67), and all-cause deaths (0.74), with an average 1.44 years more life expectancy.

Limits: One Chinese city, clinics rather than individuals randomized, 6 years of intervention followed by observational years, and not every participant was reached.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled crossover trial of 15 healthy adults (average age 23) given a single 0.35 g/kg dose of creatine monohydrate during about 21 hours of partial sleep deprivation. Processing speed improved about 16 to 29 percent depending on the task versus placebo, and self-reported fatigue fell 8 percent.

Limits: Fifteen people, one dose, partial sleep deprivation only, brain imaging in small subsets, and several results did not survive Bonferroni correction.

Cited on:Creatine

What it found: Joint American Thoracic Society and European Respiratory Society technical statement that updates the 2005 spirometry standards for instruments, operators, quality assurance, and the patient experience, with recommendations for manufacturers, clinicians, operators, and researchers.

Limits: A measurement standard, not a study of what results predict; the repeatability, calibration, and reference-equation details used on the page come from the full text (PMC6794117), not the abstract.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Company press release, not peer-reviewed at the time. In NHS-Galleri (142,250 participants aged 50 to 77) the test missed its primary endpoint (incidence rate ratio 1.03, 95% CI 0.92 to 1.14), while stage IV diagnoses fell 14% (incidence rate ratio 0.86); 1,801 participants had a positive result, 937 were diagnosed with cancer, positive predictive value was 52.0%, and the false positive rate was 0.45%.

Limits: A sponsor press release whose headline stresses the secondary result, and the release itself says the test has not been cleared or approved by the FDA.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Company press release reporting that the FDA's device panel voted 7 to 2 with 1 abstention that benefits outweigh risks, unanimously on safety, and 6 to 4 on effectiveness; GRAIL submitted its premarket approval application on January 29, 2026, and the FDA's decision was still pending, expected in the coming months.

Limits: A sponsor's account of the vote, which does not mention cancer deaths, and the FDA is not bound by the panel's advice.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Case report of a 57-year-old man with nonischemic cardiomyopathy on ECMO who received a heart from a pig with 10 gene edits, with CD40-blockade-based immunosuppression. He was weaned from ECMO and the graft worked normally until day 49, when it suddenly thickened and failed; life support was withdrawn on day 60.

Limits: One patient who was too sick for a human heart, with a graft failure the authors could not fully explain.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: Two 80-week phase 3 sleep apnea trials, TRIUMPH-1-OSA (243 participants without type 2 diabetes) and TRIUMPH-2-OSA (448 participants with it), with a baseline apnea-hypopnea index of 58.6 and 55.9 events per hour. In TRIUMPH-1-OSA retatrutide 4, 9, and 12 mg cut the index by 22.9, 34.3, and 31.7 events per hour versus 9.9 on placebo, and in TRIUMPH-2-OSA by 19.2, 24.7, and 25.4 versus 10.3 (hybrid-treatment estimand).

Limits: Published ahead of print on October 21, 2026 (volume and pages not yet assigned in the record I opened), and the abstract gives no discontinuation or adverse event percentages.

Cited on:Retatrutide

What it found: Meta-analysis of 17 controlled studies, all at unclear or high risk of bias. Yoga lowered systolic blood pressure by 4.17 and diastolic by 3.62; programs combining postures, meditation, and breathing lowered systolic by 8.17 mmHg and diastolic by 6.14 mmHg, and limited programs showed no significant effect.

Limits: Every included study was at unclear or high risk of bias, and the benefit came from programs that included meditation and breathing, not postures alone.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Ten turmeric-related cases from the US Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network (2004 to 2022, 6 since 2017): median age 56, 8 women, hepatocellular injury in 9, 5 hospitalized, 1 died of acute liver failure; 7 carried HLA-B*35:01 (allele frequency 0.450 versus 0.056 to 0.069 in population controls), and turmeric was confirmed in all 7 products tested, 3 of which also contained piperine.

Limits: A ten-case series, so it gives no rate of injury and does not say which brands were involved; latency was 1 to 4 months.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP

What it found: Continuous glucose monitoring study that grouped people into 'glucotypes' by their glucose dynamics after an identical nutrient challenge. Even people normoglycemic by standard measures showed high variability, with glucose reaching prediabetic ranges 15% of the time and diabetic ranges 2% of the time.

Limits: A research framework from a small, mostly short monitoring study; it describes patterns and does not show that any glucotype predicts diabetes or that acting on one changes outcomes.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Review including a meta-analysis of 32 controlled feeding studies: at equal calories, swapping carbohydrate for fat produced slightly lower energy expenditure (about 26 kcal a day) and about 16 g a day less body fat loss than lower-fat diets.

Limits: Controlled feeding studies are short and tightly supervised, so they test physiology rather than how well people stick to a diet in real life.

Cited on:Keto

What it found: Virta trial: 349 adults with type 2 diabetes (262 in a continuous remote care program with nutritional ketosis, 87 in usual care); 83% of the program group stayed to 1 year. HbA1c fell from 7.6% to 6.3%, weight fell 13.8 kg, insulin was reduced or stopped in 94% of users, and LDL cholesterol rose 10%; usual care showed no significant change.

Limits: Open-label and non-randomized, and the program bundled coaching, monitoring, and medication changes with the diet, so the diet's own effect cannot be isolated.

Cited on:Keto, Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Trade-press report of Eli Lilly's May 21, 2026 topline announcement for TRIUMPH-1: at 80 weeks weight fell 19.0%, 25.9%, and 28.3% on retatrutide 4, 9, and 12 mg, and discontinuation due to adverse events was 4.1%, 6.9%, and 11.3% versus 4.9% on placebo; it says dysesthesia occurred in a subset, was generally mild, and most affected participants continued.

Limits: A news report of company topline results that does not say which estimand the weight figures use and gives no sample size, and the peer-reviewed NEJM paper now supersedes it.

Cited on:Retatrutide

What it found: Review concluding that sauna bathing causes brief cardiovascular and hormonal changes that most healthy adults tolerate well. It lists unstable angina, recent myocardial infarction, and severe aortic stenosis as contraindications and warns that alcohol during sauna use raises the risk of hypotension, arrhythmia, and sudden death.

Limits: A narrative review from 2001 with no pooled numbers in the abstract, so the risk statements are expert judgment rather than measured rates.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga, Sauna

What it found: Ten days of cold acclimation at 14 to 15°C (57 to 59°F) raised peripheral insulin sensitivity by about 43% in eight people with type 2 diabetes, alongside a marked rise in muscle GLUT4 translocation. Brown fat glucose uptake rose only slightly.

Limits: Eight patients, no control group, and the abstract does not say whether the exposure was cold air or cold water, so it is not a cold plunge protocol.

Cited on:Cold plunge

What it found: Two-part crossover study in 10 healthy adults (5 women, 5 men): a single dose of 0.2 mg PQQ per kg was followed over 48 hours, and 0.3 mg per kg daily was measured after 76 hours, when plasma C-reactive protein, IL-6, and urinary methylated amines were lower and urine markers suggested better mitochondrial function.

Limits: Ten people for a few days, no effect sizes or p-values in the abstract, and markers rather than outcomes people feel.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: Review that proposes red blood cell EPA plus DHA (the Omega-3 Index) as a graded, modifiable risk factor for death from coronary heart disease: an index of 8% or higher was associated with the greatest cardioprotection and 4% or lower with the least.

Limits: A 2004 proposal built on observational data and older trials; it does not show that raising the index causes lower risk.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Law-firm summary of two FDA letters dated September 29, 2025 finding NMN not excluded from the dietary supplement definition under the race-to-market provision, while noting NMN remains a new dietary ingredient needing a notification (unless sourced from a supplier that already filed) and that self-affirmed GRAS cannot avoid it.

Limits: A secondary legal summary, not the FDA letters, which could not be opened, and it gives no docket numbers.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Twelve-week randomized trial in 196 adults with narcolepsy given armodafinil 150 mg (n = 65), 250 mg (n = 67), or placebo (n = 64) once daily. Sleep latency on the Maintenance of Wakefulness Test rose 1.3 minutes on 150 mg and 2.6 minutes on 250 mg but fell 1.9 minutes on placebo, and at least minimal clinical improvement was seen in 69% and 73% of the two armodafinil groups versus 33% on placebo (p < 0.0001).

Limits: A 12-week trial in people with narcolepsy; the abstract gives no adverse event percentages or discontinuation figures, and the test gains are measured in minutes on a 20-minute test.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil)

What it found: Systematic review of fifteen studies, all but one giving tyrosine as a load during one test session. Most behavioral studies found no significant effect on exercise performance, while cognitive studies found tyrosine acutely offset declines in working memory and information processing under demanding conditions such as extreme weather or heavy cognitive load.

Limits: Mostly single-dose studies in small samples, and the authors call for larger groups tested over multiple weeks.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled balanced crossover of 250 mg L-theanine and 150 mg caffeine alone and together. The combination improved attention accuracy and lowered mental fatigue, headache, and tiredness ratings; L-theanine alone raised headache ratings and reduced serial-subtraction accuracy.

Limits: Single-dose, short-term testing in a small crossover sample (size not in the abstract), and effects were on lab tasks.

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: A lung from a six-gene-edited pig was transplanted into a 39-year-old brain-dead man and monitored for 216 hours with no hyperacute rejection or infection. Severe edema appeared at 24 hours, and antibody-mediated rejection appeared to damage the graft on days 3 and 6, with partial recovery by day 9.

Limits: One brain-dead recipient followed for 9 days, so it cannot show how a living patient would do.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: Meta-analysis of 28 prospective studies covering 95,259 older adults. Long sleep was tied to higher all-cause mortality (adjusted hazard ratio 1.24, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.33) while short sleep was only marginal (1.04, 95% CI 1.00 to 1.09); publication bias was likely for long sleep, though the trim-and-fill method strengthened that result.

Limits: Older adults only, self-reported sleep, and the authors list sex, region, survey method, age, and follow-up as sources of inconsistency between studies.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: The authors identified a mutation in the human transcriptional repressor DEC2 that is linked to short sleep, and mice carrying the equivalent mutation slept less than controls, with the difference depending on time of day and on sleep deprivation.

Limits: A rare family-level mutation plus a mouse model, so it explains how a few people sleep less and says nothing about whether other people can train themselves to.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Randomized trial of 40 healthy, moderately trained, nonsmoking men for 8 weeks at 3 sessions a week, with four groups matched for oxygen consumption (long slow distance at 70% HRmax, lactate threshold at 85% HRmax, 15/15 intervals, and 4 x 4 minute intervals). VO2max rose 5.5% with 15/15 and 7.2% with 4 x 4 (55.5 to 60.4 mL/kg/min), significantly more than the two steady groups (P<0.01), and stroke volume rose about 10%.

Limits: Small, short, all men who were already moderately trained, so it may not carry over to women, older adults, or untrained people.

Cited on:Training

What it found: RSNA news report (July 1, 2026): whole-body MRI is expanding as a screening tool for healthy patients while radiology leaders warn that evidence of clinical benefit remains limited; of about 160 patients in Weill Cornell's first 18 months, 90% had some finding and about 1% of findings were malignant or suspected malignant, and a radiologist quoted says the data do not yet show it extends lives.

Limits: A news report quoting individual radiologists and one center's early numbers, not a study.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Phase 2 double-blind trial of 76 non-diabetic relatives at high risk for type 1 diabetes (44 teplizumab, 32 placebo) given one 14-day course. Median time to diagnosis was 48.4 months with teplizumab versus 24.4 months with placebo, and diabetes was diagnosed in 43% versus 72% (hazard ratio 0.41, 95% CI 0.22 to 0.78).

Limits: Seventy-six people, mostly children, and the drug delays diagnosis rather than preventing the disease; rash and transient lymphopenia were expected adverse events.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Critical review of Bikram yoga research, a standardized series of postures in a heated, humid room. The literature suggests better lower-body strength, range of motion, and balance in healthy adults, with non-randomized hints of benefit for glucose tolerance, bone density, lipids, arterial stiffness, mindfulness, and perceived stress, and the authors note a lack of large, well-designed randomized trials.

Limits: A 2015 review that rests on small studies, many non-randomized, and it predates later null trials.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Sixty-three stressed, sedentary adults were randomized to Bikram yoga three to five times a week (n = 29) or no treatment (n = 34) for 16 weeks. There was no significant change in high-frequency heart rate variability (p = 0.912) or any secondary cardiovascular risk factor, and higher attendance within the yoga group was linked to lower diastolic blood pressure, body fat percentage, and body mass index.

Limits: A null trial overall, and the attendance links are within-group associations, with the authors saying low adherence contributed to the null results.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Sixteen-week randomized trial in inactive, stressed adults averaging 37.2 years: the yoga group (n = 29) was asked to attend three to five Bikram classes a week and attended an average of 27 classes, and controls (n = 34) got no treatment. Perceived stress (p = 0.003), self-efficacy (p = 0.034), general health (p = 0.034), and energy and fatigue (p = 0.019) improved more with yoga.

Limits: No active control and self-reported outcomes, so expectation could explain part of the effect, and attendance varied widely.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 28 young adults (mean age 22.7) taking 4 g/day of a mushroom blend containing Cordyceps militaris for one week, with 10 continuing to three weeks. Nothing changed at one week; at three weeks VO2max rose 4.8 ml/kg/min in the mushroom group (p = 0.042) versus 0.9 in placebo.

Limits: Only 10 people reached week three, the product was a blend rather than pure cordyceps, and the outcome was exercise, not cognition.

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: Twelve-week randomized double-blind study of 259 patients with obstructive sleep apnea/hypopnea syndrome and leftover sleepiness despite nasal CPAP, given armodafinil 150 mg once daily or placebo. Sleep latency on the Maintenance of Wakefulness Test rose 2.3 minutes on armodafinil and fell 1.3 minutes on placebo (P=0.0003), 71% versus 53% were rated improved (P=0.0069), and CPAP use was not adversely affected.

Limits: A 12-week study at a single dose in CPAP-treated patients, so it cannot show long-term benefit or effects in people without sleep apnea.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil)

What it found: Cochrane review of placebo-controlled trials of at least 3 weeks of coenzyme Q10 in primary hypertension: only two trials (50 participants) could be pooled, and clinic blood pressure did not change significantly (systolic -3.68 mm Hg, 95% CI -8.86 to 1.49; diastolic -2.03, 95% CI -4.86 to 0.81), so the authors found no clinically significant effect.

Limits: Only 50 people pooled, so it cannot rule out a real effect; later reviews that pool people with other conditions found a drop.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: Meta-analysis of 17 hatha yoga studies (11 waitlist-controlled) with 501 participants. The within-group effect on anxiety was Hedges' g = 0.44 and the controlled effect was g = 0.61; benefit grew with total hours practiced and was largest in people with elevated anxiety.

Limits: Small studies with mostly waitlist comparisons, so expectation and attention may account for some of the effect.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Prospective cohort of 7,058 men and 8,353 women aged 45 to 64 screened in 1972 to 1976 and followed 15 years. Men and women in the lowest fifth of FEV1 had relative hazards for all-cause death of 1.92 (95% CI 1.68 to 2.20) and 1.89 (1.63 to 2.20), with raised hazards for ischemic heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer.

Limits: A 1970s observational cohort whose abstract does not name the comparison group for the lowest fifth, so I report the hazards without one.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Randomized trial of 61 healthy, sedentary adults (mean age 53), 34 to two years of supervised exercise training and 27 to attention control, 53 finishing. VO2max rose 18% with training (29.0 to 34.4 mL/kg/min) with no change in controls, and the left ventricular stiffness constant fell from 0.072 to 0.051 (P = 0.0018) while controls stayed at about 0.063.

Limits: Small trial in healthy, previously sedentary middle-aged adults; the abstract does not spell out the session details, and it does not show the same result in people who already train.

Cited on:Training

What it found: Six-week randomized trial of 290 yoga-naive volunteers assigned to hot yoga (n = 137) or a wait-list control (n = 153). Life satisfaction, general health, mindfulness, peace of mind, and eudaimonic well-being improved, but not flourishing, with small effects (change in R-squared .01 to .08).

Limits: A wait-list comparison in healthy volunteers with self-reported well-being outcomes and small effects, so it cannot isolate the heat.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Study of 31 men given varying creatine regimens. Muscle total creatine rose about 20 percent after 6 days at 20 g/day and stayed raised on 2 g/day; 3 g/day raised it a similar ~20 percent more gradually over 28 days; levels returned to baseline about 30 days after stopping.

Limits: Small, men only, and it measured muscle creatine levels rather than performance or health outcomes.

Cited on:Creatine

What it found: Twenty-four young adults and 18 middle-aged and older adults did 90-minute Bikram classes three times a week for 8 weeks in a heated room, with no control group. Carotid artery compliance rose and the beta-stiffness index fell in the young adults only, insulin resistance fell in the older adults only, and trunk flexibility improved in both, while body weight, body fat, blood pressure, and fasting glucose did not change.

Limits: Small, short, and the abstract describes no randomized control group, so the changes cannot be attributed to the heat or to yoga.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Forty-three apparently healthy adults (23 with normal BMI, 20 overweight or obese) completed 8 weeks of Bikram yoga with no control group. Pulse wave velocity (arterial stiffness) fell in the overweight and obese group with no change in the normal-BMI group, and emotional well-being improved in both.

Limits: Small, with no randomized control group described in the abstract, and the PubMed record carries an erratum.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Fifty-four sedentary adults aged 40 to 60 completed 12 weeks of heated yoga (n = 21), room-temperature yoga (n = 14), or a time control (n = 19). Brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity, a measure of arterial stiffness, did not change significantly with either yoga.

Limits: Small, short, and a null result on arterial stiffness for both heated and unheated yoga.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Fifty-two sedentary adults aged 40 to 60 were randomized to Bikram yoga in a heated room (n = 19), the same yoga at room temperature (n = 14), or a sedentary control (n = 19), with 90-minute classes three times a week for 12 weeks. Flow-mediated dilation rose significantly with room-temperature yoga and tended to rise with heated yoga (P = 0.056), with no significant difference between groups, and body fat percentage was lower afterward in the heated group.

Limits: Small groups and a trial that tested heat directly, finding no extra vascular benefit from the heat.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Systematic review of 40 clinical studies with 3,855 participants, of which only 13 were randomized controlled trials and most had fewer than 40 participants. Most studies reported beneficial effects, and one small study (n = 10) reported reversible disruption of sperm production; the authors call for better data on adverse effects, frequency, and duration.

Limits: Mostly small and varied studies, so it maps the evidence rather than settling any single claim.

Cited on:Sauna

What it found: Randomized, placebo-controlled trial of 20 mg/day of PQQ with a six-week endurance program in 23 untrained men: aerobic performance did not differ between groups (both improved with training, P < 0.05), but PGC-1alpha protein, a marker of mitochondrial biogenesis, was higher on PQQ (P < 0.05).

Limits: Twenty-three men for six weeks, and a rise in a laboratory marker without any gain in performance.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: A commentary on the 2024 KDIGO chronic kidney disease guideline: it says the new guidelines promote combining creatinine and cystatin C (eGFRcr-cys) when more precision is required, and that eGFRcr-cys should at minimum be considered where creatinine-based eGFR may be subject to error, with special diets listed among those situations.

Limits: A commentary, not the guideline itself; it does not mention creatine supplements or high muscle mass by name.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind trial of 250 mg/day NMN for 6 or 12 weeks in men over 65 (42 randomized). Blood NAD+ rose; gait speed (12-week 1.60 vs 1.30 m/s, P = 0.002) and left-hand grip improved by nominal statistics, with no effect on muscle mass.

Limits: Tiny groups after a supplier error, no correction for multiple comparisons, and Mitsubishi Corporation Life Sciences funded it and employs three authors.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Pooled analysis of 16 prospective cohorts from 12 countries (63,682 participants, 15,180 new type 2 diabetes cases, about 9 years of follow-up): higher circulating or adipose-tissue 15:0 went with lower diabetes risk (HR 0.80, 95% CI 0.73 to 0.87, per 10th to 90th percentile range), as did 17:0 (0.65) and trans-palmitoleic acid (0.82).

Limits: Observational, the markers cannot tell milk from cheese or yogurt, residual confounding is possible, and several authors report ties to Unilever and dairy industry associations.

Cited on:fatty15 (C15:0)

What it found: The certifier's certified-brands page says companies listed there have brands and products certified with Informed Choice and that not all companies have their entire product range certified; the saved copy does not include the brand list itself.

Limits: The brand list did not appear in the saved page, so this record shows no brand's certification status.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: Says four brands united in 2000 as Integrative Therapeutics: Vitaline (1975, Jed Meese, PhD), NF Formulas (1978, Bruce Canvasser, ND), PhytoPharmica (1981, Terry Lemerond), and Tyler Encapsulations (1987, Corey Resnick, ND, co-founder); says every product is tested for potency and purity in its own lab and lists no outside certification.

Limits: Company history page; it gives no headquarters or parent company.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: The maker's product page: a serving is 2 capsules providing 600 mg of Theracurmin curcumin extract in both the 60- and 120-capsule sizes, with company claims that it is over 27 times more bioavailable than a standard curcumin extract (citing Sasaki 2011 and Sunagawa 2015) and supports detoxification pathways, cardiovascular function, and muscle recovery, plus the standard statement that the claims have not been evaluated by the FDA.

Limits: Company marketing copy; the "27 times" figure comes from small absorption studies, the page is undated, and it shows no Amazon link, only a sign-in order page.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP, The companies behind what I take

What it found: An earlier, off-market label (entered September 21, 2017; off market June 21, 2018): 60 capsules, 2 capsules per serving, Theracurmin 600 mg providing 30% curcumin (180 mg), with a typical first-week dose of 2 capsules or more once a day, then 1 capsule a day.

Limits: An old label, shown only because it is the one I opened that gives the 30% curcumin (180 mg) figure; the current label lists 600 mg of Theracurmin without that breakdown.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP

What it found: Label record entered January 23, 2025 and not marked off market: 2 capsules per serving, 60 servings in a 120-capsule bottle, 600 mg of Theracurmin per serving, adults take 2 capsules daily or as a healthcare professional recommends, with warnings against use in pregnancy or nursing and a note to ask a professional about gallstones, bile duct obstruction, or medications; Theracurmin is a registered trademark of Theravalues Corporation used under license by Schwabe North America.

Limits: A database copy of the label for the 120-capsule bottle, not the maker's current page, so I did not confirm the 60-capsule label or that nothing changed since January 2025.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP

What it found: ISCD adult positions (approved August 24, 2023): scan the PA spine and hip, define osteoporosis as a T-score of -2.5 or less in postmenopausal women and men 50 and older, set minimum technologist precision for body composition at 3% for total fat mass and 2% for total lean mass and percent fat mass, and list body-composition indications including large planned weight loss and muscle weakness (outcome impact uncertain for the last two).

Limits: A professional society's rules for clinical densitometry; the page shows no last-updated date (copyright August 2023) and does not show that DXA body composition improves outcomes in healthy people.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Systematic review of 11 studies (10 RCTs and one controlled trial) of Rhodiola rosea. Two of six trials on physical fatigue in healthy people and three of five RCTs on mental fatigue found it effective, and all included studies had high risk of bias or reporting flaws.

Limits: The authors call the evidence contradictory because of methodological flaws; the abstract gives no participant numbers or doses.

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: ISS National Lab press release saying the 3D BioFabrication Facility, built by Techshot with nScrypt's micro-dispensing tool head and now owned and operated by Redwire Space, would launch on SpaceX's CRS-18 Dragon mission no earlier than July 24, 2019, starting with simple engineering prints before cardiac-like tissue. It notes about 75,000 people on the U.S. organ waiting list and that building a human lung is likely many years away.

Limits: A launch announcement, not results, and it does not mention Elon Musk.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: ISS National Lab article reporting that the BioFabrication Facility completed its first space-based prints in December 2019 with human heart cells and then made test prints of a partial human meniscus, with the meniscus materials launched in March 2020 on SpaceX CRS-20.

Limits: A sponsor's news article, not a peer-reviewed result, with no tissue-quality data.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: ISS National Lab page saying an upgraded Redwire BioFabrication Facility, a 3D bioprinter for human tissue, traveled to the station on Northrop Grumman's 18th commercial resupply mission (NG-18), aiming to advance in-space bioprinting of tissues and possibly organs in the future.

Limits: A mission preview that does not name SpaceX or Elon Musk and reports no results.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: Meta-analysis of 153 studies with 5,172,710 participants. Short sleep was linked to higher mortality (relative risk 1.12, 95% CI 1.08 to 1.16), diabetes (1.37), obesity (1.38), hypertension (1.17), cardiovascular disease (1.16), and coronary heart disease (1.26), and mortality rose in a linear pattern below six hours.

Limits: Observational pooling of self-reported sleep, so it shows associations and cannot separate short sleep from the illnesses, jobs, or habits that go with it.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 20 mg/day of BioPQQ for 12 weeks in 41 healthy older adults: the change in the Stroop interference ratio was significantly smaller on PQQ than on placebo, which the authors read as preventing decline, a memory test improved only in the lower-scoring subgroup (initial score under 70), and preliminary near-infrared spectroscopy suggested more prefrontal blood flow.

Limits: Forty-one people, no p-values in the abstract, a subgroup finding, and several authors list affiliations with Mitsubishi Gas Chemical and CX Medical Japan.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: Meta-analysis of 22 observational studies (19 case-control, 2 nested case-control, 1 cohort): a history of head trauma causing concussion went with a pooled adjusted odds ratio of 1.57 (95% CI 1.35 to 1.83) for Parkinson's disease.

Limits: Mostly case-control studies, which depend on people recalling old injuries, so it shows an association and cannot rule out that early disease made falls more likely.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Double-blind, sham-controlled trial of one session of whole-body hyperthermia in 29 analyzed adults with major depressive disorder, followed for 6 weeks. The hyperthermia group scored lower on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale than sham by 6.53 points at week 1 (95% CI -9.90 to -3.16) and 4.27 points at week 6 (-7.94 to -0.61).

Limits: Tiny trial of a clinical heating procedure rather than a home sauna session, and 93.8% of the heat group (versus 71.4% of sham) believed they had received real heat, so blinding was imperfect.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga, Sauna

What it found: Cross-sectional comparison of skeletal muscle metabolomes in young adults and older adults who were exercise-trained, normally active, or physically impaired. NAD+ was among the most prominently lower metabolites in older adults, lowest in the impaired group, and closer to young levels in the trained group; NAD+ correlated with daily steps and muscle function.

Limits: Cross-sectional with no causal direction, and the abstract gives no numerical values.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Double-blind Latin square crossover study of 24 men with a history of polysubstance abuse, including cocaine, given modafinil 200, 400, or 800 mg, methylphenidate 45 or 90 mg, or placebo. The men could tell both drugs from placebo and liked the effects of both, but modafinil showed no significant response on the Amphetamine Scale of the Addiction Research Center Inventory, unlike methylphenidate.

Limits: Twenty-four men with drug-abuse histories taking single doses of modafinil, not armodafinil, so it says little about everyday use in people without that history, and the abstract does not report statistics.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil)

What it found: Phase 3 TRIUMPH-1 trial (NCT05929066) randomizing 2,339 adults with obesity and no diabetes to once-weekly retatrutide 4, 9, or 12 mg or placebo for 80 weeks. Weight changed -17.6%, -23.7%, and -25.0% versus -3.9% on placebo (P<0.001), WOMAC knee pain in the 574-person osteoarthritis subgroup fell 3.4, 3.9, and 4.1 points versus 2.5 (ITT estimand), and apnea-hypopnea events per hour in the 243-person sleep apnea subgroup fell 22.8, 34.3, and 32.1 versus 9.6 (ITT estimand).

Limits: Funded by Eli Lilly; the abstract gives no discontinuation or adverse event frequencies beyond saying gastrointestinal events were most common, and its weight results count everyone randomized (treatment-regimen estimand), which gives lower figures than the efficacy estimand Lilly's press releases lead with.

Cited on:Retatrutide, The companies behind what I take

What it found: Phase 2 double-blind placebo-controlled trial of once-weekly retatrutide for 48 weeks in 338 adults with obesity or overweight. Mean weight change at 24 weeks ran from -7.2% (1 mg) to -17.5% (12 mg) versus -1.6% on placebo, and at 48 weeks from -8.7% (1 mg) to -24.2% (12 mg) versus -2.1%; the most common adverse events were gastrointestinal, dose-related, mostly mild to moderate, and partly eased by a lower starting dose (2 mg versus 4 mg).

Limits: A phase 2 trial funded by Eli Lilly with 338 people for 48 weeks, and the abstract gives no discontinuation figure.

Cited on:Retatrutide, The companies behind what I take

What it found: SURMOUNT-1: 2,539 adults with obesity, 1,032 of them with prediabetes, were randomized to weekly tirzepatide 5, 10, or 15 mg or placebo; the prediabetes group was followed 176 weeks plus 17 weeks off treatment. Weight change was -12.3%, -18.7%, and -19.7% versus -1.3%, and type 2 diabetes was diagnosed in 1.3% on tirzepatide versus 13.3% on placebo (HR 0.07), or 2.4% versus 13.7% after the off-treatment period (HR 0.12). Funded by Eli Lilly.

Limits: Funded by the maker, and the diabetes-prevention result comes from the prediabetes subset of people with obesity, so it does not show benefit for lean people or for years after stopping the drug.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Survey-linked cohort of 113,752 women and 88,496 men aged 25 or older. Current smokers had about three times the all-cause death rate of never smokers (HR about 3.0 for women, 2.8 for men) and lost more than 10 years of life; quitting at 25 to 34 regained about 10 years and quitting before age 40 removed about 90% of the excess risk.

Limits: Self-reported smoking in a national survey, and the outcome is all-cause mortality, not heart disease specifically.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Meta-analysis of 137 prospective cohort studies with 5,134,036 participants. Long sleep was linked to higher mortality (relative risk 1.39, 95% CI 1.31 to 1.47), diabetes (1.26), cardiovascular disease (1.25), stroke (1.46), and coronary heart disease (1.24), with no significant link to hypertension (1.01).

Limits: Observational, and the authors say whether long sleep is a cause or a modifiable risk factor remains to be tested.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Review of tyrosine supplementation in clinical and healthy people. It concludes tyrosine has limited benefit for clinical disorders and for physical exercise, and enhances cognition mainly in short-term stressful or cognitively demanding situations, but only when dopamine or norepinephrine is temporarily depleted and neurotransmitter function is otherwise intact.

Limits: A narrative review whose abstract gives no doses, sample sizes, or effect sizes, and it was written by a group that also runs tyrosine trials.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: The about page says the company tests "rigorously for purity and potency" and lists third-party testing among its values; it names no founders, founding year, location, manufacturer, or certification.

Limits: Mission-statement language with no named lab or certificate.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: States that the website is independently owned and operated; the page names no legal entity or address.

Limits: No corporate details anywhere on the site, so I could not identify the legal owner.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: The maker's home page lists two products named "L-Tyrosine Gummies 1000MG", both linking out to Amazon, and shows no supplement facts, serving size, or servings per container for either.

Limits: The page gives no label details, so the amount per serving, the serving size, and the other ingredients could not be confirmed from the maker.

Cited on:L-tyrosine, The companies behind what I take

What it found: Systematic review and meta-analysis of 54 studies of modafinil. Versus placebo in sleep apnea, insomnia had a risk ratio of 5.82, anxiety or nervousness 3.26, and headache 1.92, and in shift work sleep disorder insomnia was 4.09, anxiety or nervousness 3.85, and nausea 2.93, so the specific risks vary across patient groups.

Limits: About modafinil, not armodafinil, and the abstract does not give the number of randomized trials, participants, or discontinuation rates.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil)

What it found: Three-week double-blind trial of 40 people randomized to placebo (n = 10), creatine (n = 11), HMB (n = 9), or creatine plus HMB (n = 10), with 3.0 g/day of HMB. Versus placebo the creatine, HMB, and combined groups gained 0.92, 0.39, and 1.54 kg more lean body mass; creatine had a main effect (P = 0.05), HMB a trend (P = 0.08), and there was no interaction (P = 0.73), so the authors called the effects additive.

Limits: Three weeks, 9 to 11 people per group, and lean mass was estimated with bioelectrical impedance.

Cited on:Creatine, HMB

What it found: Six healthy volunteers took single 150 mg and then 210 mg doses of Theracurmin two weeks apart: peak plasma curcumin was 189 and 275 ng/ml, 24-hour exposure (AUC) was 2,649 and 3,649 ng/ml per hour, and half-life was 9.7 and 13.0 hours, with one case of grade 1 diarrhea.

Limits: Six people, single doses, and blood levels only, so it shows absorption and short-term tolerability, not any benefit.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP

What it found: Phase I study in patients with pancreatic or biliary tract cancer that had failed standard chemotherapy, given Theracurmin with 200 mg (10 patients) or 400 mg (6 patients) of curcumin daily alongside gemcitabine-based chemotherapy: median peak plasma curcumin was 324 and 440 ng/mL, there were no unexpected adverse events, and 3 patients continued for more than 9 months.

Limits: A small phase I safety and blood-level study, so it says nothing about whether curcumin helps treat the cancer.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP

What it found: AASM guideline: questionnaires and prediction tools should not be used to diagnose OSA without polysomnography or home testing (strong); uncomplicated adults at increased risk of moderate-to-severe OSA can be tested with polysomnography or a home sleep apnea test on a technically adequate device (strong); a negative, inconclusive, or inadequate home test should be followed by polysomnography (strong); polysomnography is preferred for significant cardiorespiratory disease, chronic opioid use, prior stroke, or severe insomnia (strong).

Limits: A 2017 guideline on how to diagnose, not on who benefits from treatment, and its abstract reports no accuracy numbers.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Validation study in 124 adults aged 18 to 90 with BMI 18.5 to 40 who had DXA and CT within an hour. DXA visceral fat volume tracked CT closely (r2 0.957 combined) but the combined 95% limits of agreement were -355 to +468 cm3 around a mean difference of 56 cm3.

Limits: One research dataset with a BMI cap of 40, and CT is the comparison standard, so it shows agreement for groups better than it pins down one person's volume.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Five patients received combined kidney and bone marrow transplants from living donors mismatched at one HLA haplotype after nonmyeloablative conditioning. One had irreversible humoral rejection; in the other four all immunosuppression was stopped 9 to 14 months after transplant and kidney function stayed stable for 2.0 to 5.3 years.

Limits: Five patients, no control group, and one lost the kidney to rejection.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: Ten patients received HLA-mismatched kidney and bone marrow transplants. Immunosuppression was stopped for 4 or more years in seven; four remained off drugs for 4.5 to 11.4 years, three resumed after 5 to 8 years, and 3 of the 10 kidneys failed from thrombotic microangiopathy or rejection.

Limits: Ten patients in a single-center series without a randomized control group.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: Systematic review and meta-analysis of 7 randomized trials with 321 patients with statin-associated muscle pain: CoQ10 did not clearly reduce myalgia (weighted mean difference -0.42, 95% CI -1.47 to 0.62) or improve staying on the statin (RR 0.99, 95% CI 0.81 to 1.20), though two studies reported a positive effect on pain.

Limits: Seven small trials of 37 to 76 people each, so a modest benefit could be missed.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: The PREVENT risk equations were derived in 3,281,919 participants from 25 data sets and validated in 3,330,085 from 21 data sets (6,612,004 adults aged 30 to 79 in all, with 211,515 incident cardiovascular events). C-statistics were 0.794 in women and 0.757 in men.

Limits: A risk-prediction model: it estimates average risk for groups of people and says nothing about how a given person's plaque is behaving.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: National Lipid Association scientific statement concluding that low-carb and very-low-carb diets are not superior to other diets for weight loss, may help appetite, triglycerides, and medication use in type 2 diabetes, have mixed effects on LDL cholesterol (some studies show an increase), and lack long-term (more than 2 years) safety data.

Limits: A 2019 expert review, so it predates the KETO-CTA study and the longer Virta follow-up, and the abstract gives no pooled numbers.

Cited on:Keto, Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Diabetes Prevention Program: 3,234 nondiabetic adults with elevated fasting and post-load glucose (mean BMI 34.0) were randomized to placebo, metformin 850 mg twice daily, or a lifestyle program aiming for 7% weight loss and 150 minutes of activity a week, with mean follow-up 2.8 years. Diabetes incidence was 11.0, 7.8, and 4.8 cases per 100 person-years; lifestyle cut incidence 58% (95% CI 48 to 66) and metformin 31% (17 to 43) versus placebo.

Limits: A high-risk group followed for under 3 years, so it shows prevention or delay in that window and not how long it lasts; the follow-up papers cover that.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Random-effects meta-analysis of 33 cohort studies (102,980 participants for all-cause mortality, 6,910 deaths). Each 1-MET higher maximal aerobic capacity went with a relative risk of 0.87 (95% CI 0.84 to 0.90) for all-cause mortality and 0.85 (0.82 to 0.88) for coronary or cardiovascular events; low versus high fitness (under 7.9 vs 10.9 METs or more) was 1.70 (1.51 to 1.92) for all-cause mortality.

Limits: Pooled observational cohorts, so fitness may partly mark healthy people rather than cause the lower risk, and it says nothing about which training method works best.

Cited on:Training, Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Cohort of 750,302 US veterans aged 30 to 95 followed a median 10.2 years (174,807 deaths). Mortality was lowest at about 14.0 METs (hazard ratio 0.24 for men, 0.23 for women), and the least fit 20th percentile had a hazard ratio of 4.09 (95% CI 3.90 to 4.20) versus the extremely fit group.

Limits: Observational and mostly male (45,232 women), so fitter people may differ in other ways, and it cannot show that raising fitness lowers an individual's risk.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Meta-analysis of 9 randomized placebo-controlled trials (518 subjects, 437 in the analysis) of standardized Bacopa extract given for at least 12 weeks. Trail B time fell 17.9 ms (95% CI -24.6 to -11.2) and choice reaction time fell 10.6 ms (95% CI -12.1 to -9.2).

Limits: Small millisecond-scale changes from trials of at least 12 weeks, and the authors call for a larger well-designed trial.

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: Systematic review and meta-analysis of 7 randomized trials with 389 statin-treated patients (30 to 90 days, 100 to 600 mg/day of CoQ10): muscle symptoms fell significantly in 4 trials and not in 3, and the pooled pain-intensity difference was -0.96 (95% CI -1.88 to -0.03).

Limits: Seven small, short trials and a pooled interval that barely excludes zero, so it leans toward a small benefit without settling the question.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: Trade-press report on a press release from NOW, a supplement maker, which tested 12 brands of creatine gummies by HPLC against a creatine reference standard. Six of the 12 met or exceeded their label claims, creatinine was detected in all the gummies that failed to meet their creatine claims, and NOW said, answering one brand's dispute, that it tested a single lot.

Limits: The test was run by a supplement company on a single lot, two of the brands named as failing answered with their own lab results, and NOW said labs apparently lack validated methods for gummies; I read the trade-press report, not NOW's own release.

Cited on:Creatine

What it found: Meta-analysis of 19 placebo-controlled trials of single-dose modafinil with 67 effect sizes across attention, executive function, memory, and processing speed. The overall effect over placebo was small (g = 0.10, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.15, P < 0.001), dose (100 mg versus 200 mg) did not change it, and the authors conclude the evidence shows only limited potential for modafinil as a cognitive enhancer outside sleep-deprived people.

Limits: Single-dose lab studies of modafinil, not armodafinil, and the abstract does not give participant numbers or per-domain results.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil)

What it found: Expert position stand and review of the creatine literature. Names creatine monohydrate as the most studied and effective form, suggests about 0.3 g/kg/day for 5 to 7 days then 3 to 5 g/day, and finds no compelling evidence of harm in healthy people or clinical populations at up to 30 g/day for 5 years.

Limits: A consensus statement by authors who work in sports nutrition, not a single trial, and it suggests people with kidney disease check with a physician first.

Cited on:Creatine

What it found: American Cancer Society Cancer Prevention Study II: more than 1.1 million adults aged 30 to 102 reported their sleep. Those sleeping 7 hours had the best survival, mortality hazard was significantly higher for 8 hours or more and for 6 hours or less, and the authors wrote that short sleep and insomnia seem associated with little risk distinct from comorbidities and that causality is unproven.

Limits: Self-reported sleep in an older observational cohort from the 1980s, and the authors state that causality is unproven.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: European Atherosclerosis Society consensus statement concluding that Lp(a) is a causal, continuous risk factor for cardiovascular disease and aortic valve stenosis across ethnic groups, including at very low LDL cholesterol. It recommends at least one Lp(a) measurement in every adult and early, intensive management of other risk factors when Lp(a) is high.

Limits: A consensus statement, not a trial; the abstract notes that Lp(a)-specific drugs still need outcome trials to confirm clinical benefit.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Lab tests worth knowing, Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Meta-analysis of 11 modafinil trials (723 patients) and 5 armodafinil trials (1,009 patients) in obstructive sleep apnea. Versus placebo, the Epworth Sleepiness Scale improved by 2.96 points on modafinil and 2.63 on armodafinil, and sleep latency on the Maintenance of Wakefulness Test lengthened by 2.51 and 2.71 minutes.

Limits: Searched literature only through October 2015, and the abstract gives no doses or adverse event counts beyond saying both drugs were tolerated well.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil)

What it found: Eight healthy young men did three heat sessions (80°C and 100°C dry heat until discomfort, plus a longer 80°C session to exhaustion). Heart rate rose about 60%, 90%, and 130%, plasma norepinephrine about 100%, 160%, and 310%, and growth hormone rose in the 100°C session while cortisol fell in the two shorter sessions.

Limits: Eight young men in single, push-to-the-limit sessions, so it describes acute stress responses, not long-term effects or what a typical session does.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga, Sauna

What it found: Prospective cohort of 1,628 Finnish adults aged 53 to 74 with no stroke history, followed a median of 14.9 years, with 155 strokes. Compared with one session a week, 4 to 7 sessions a week had a hazard ratio of 0.39 (95% CI 0.18 to 0.83) adjusted for age and sex, and 0.38 (0.18 to 0.81) after adding physical activity and socioeconomic status.

Limits: Observational with a modest number of strokes (only 34 hemorrhagic), so subgroup results are imprecise and causation is not shown.

Cited on:Sauna

What it found: Systematic review of 42 prospective studies drawn from 35 distinct populations. Unlike earlier reviews, it found no consistent association between self-reported sleep duration and mortality, and it called a robust U-shaped link premature because survey-based sleep measures correlate poorly with objective ones.

Limits: A critical review that points to measurement error, response bias, confounding, and reverse causation, so it argues against over-reading these studies in either direction.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Systematic review of 12 studies with 5,373 asymptomatic adults: pooled prevalence of critical and indeterminate findings combined was 32.1% (95% CI 18.3% to 50.1%), the pooled false-positive proportion was 16.0% (95% CI 1.9% to 65.8%, six studies), and verification data were lacking.

Limits: Very wide confidence intervals and heterogeneity (I2 95.6 to 99.1), and no included study followed negative scans for 5 years, so it cannot give a true false-negative rate.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: American College of Gastroenterology guideline that gives a true healthy normal ALT of 29 to 33 IU/L for males and 19 to 25 IU/L for females, and says levels above those ranges should be assessed.

Limits: A guideline, not a trial; a raised ALT starts a workup (viral hepatitis, fatty liver, alcohol-related liver disease, and other causes) rather than giving a diagnosis.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial of 650 mg guayusa extract and 1 g Nordic-grown lion's mane versus placebo, tested at baseline, 1, and 2 hours. Lion's mane improved Serial 7s attempts, N-Back reaction time, and Go-stimulus reaction time, and raised happiness ratings; guayusa showed more effects.

Limits: Acute single-dose testing only over two hours, sample size not in the abstract, and funded by Applied Food Sciences (one author discloses supplement-industry funding).

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: Ascending-dose phase 1 trial of CTX310, a lipid-nanoparticle CRISPR-Cas9 therapy aimed at liver ANGPTL3, given as one infusion to 15 adults with uncontrolled high cholesterol, high triglycerides, or mixed dyslipidemia on maximal therapy. ANGPTL3 fell a mean 79.7% at 0.7 mg/kg and 73.2% at 0.8 mg/kg; no dose-limiting toxicity occurred, three people had infusion reactions, and one participant died suddenly on day 179 after the 0.1 mg/kg dose.

Limits: Fifteen people in a dose-finding trial funded by CRISPR Therapeutics, with the abstract reporting ANGPTL3 levels and safety rather than LDL, triglycerides, or heart attacks.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: A 2026 NEJM letter from the CTX310 investigators reporting longer follow-up of the one-time ANGPTL3 gene-editing trial; the PubMed record lists it as a letter with no abstract.

Limits: I could confirm the letter exists but not read its text, so I quote no durability numbers from it.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Meta-analysis of 53 studies with 563 people on creatine and 575 controls. Global upper-limb effect size 0.317 (95% CI 0.185 to 0.449, p < 0.001); bench press 0.265 and chest press 0.677. Meta-regression found no link to population or supplementation characteristics.

Limits: Upper-body strength only, and the abstract does not give doses or training details.

Cited on:Creatine

What it found: Narrative review (MEDLINE and EMBASE searched to February 24, 2018) of observational studies and trials linking sauna bathing to lower risk of hypertension, cardiovascular disease, neurocognitive disease, pulmonary disease, and mortality. It proposes mechanisms including better endothelium-dependent dilation, lower arterial stiffness, autonomic nervous system effects, favorable lipid changes, and lower blood pressure.

Limits: A narrative review by the same group that ran the Finnish cohort, so it leans on their observational work and the abstract reports no pooled estimates.

Cited on:Sauna

What it found: Prospective cohort of 2,315 men aged 42 to 60 in eastern Finland, followed a median of 20.7 years, with 929 deaths. Compared with one sauna session a week, 4 to 7 sessions a week had an adjusted sudden cardiac death hazard ratio of 0.37 (95% CI 0.18 to 0.75), and sessions longer than 19 minutes versus under 11 minutes gave 0.48 (0.31 to 0.75); crude all-cause deaths were 49.1%, 37.8%, and 30.8% at 1, 2 to 3, and 4 to 7 sessions a week.

Limits: Observational, men only, with sauna habits recorded at baseline, so it cannot show that sauna caused the lower risk (fitter or healthier men may sauna more often).

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga, Sauna, Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Prospective cohort of 2,315 men aged 42 to 60 followed a median of 20.7 years, with 204 dementia cases and 123 Alzheimer's cases. Compared with one session a week, 4 to 7 sessions a week had a dementia hazard ratio of 0.34 (95% CI 0.16 to 0.71) and an Alzheimer's hazard ratio of 0.35 (0.14 to 0.90); 2 to 3 sessions a week was not significant (0.78, 0.57 to 1.06, for dementia).

Limits: Observational, men only, relatively few cases, and the same Finnish cohort as the mortality paper, so it is not an independent confirmation and cannot show causation.

Cited on:Sauna, Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Prospective cohort of 1,688 Finnish adults (mean age 63, 51.4% women) followed a median of 15.0 years, with 181 fatal cardiovascular events. Compared with one session a week, 4 to 7 sessions a week had a hazard ratio of 0.30 (95% CI 0.14 to 0.64) adjusted for age and sex, and 0.23 (0.08 to 0.65) after full adjustment; 2 to 3 sessions was 0.75 (0.52 to 1.08) after full adjustment.

Limits: Observational, so it cannot show that sauna lowered the risk; the 2 to 3 session group was not clearly different from once a week after full adjustment.

Cited on:Sauna

What it found: DiRECT: 306 people recruited from 49 UK primary care practices (149 per group analyzed). At 12 months, diabetes remission off drugs occurred in 68 (46%) of the intervention group versus 6 (4%) of controls (odds ratio 19.7, 95% CI 7.8 to 49.8), mean weight fell 10.0 kg versus 1.0 kg, and 31 (86%) of 36 who lost 15 kg or more were in remission.

Limits: Open-label, in people recently diagnosed, and it tested one structured low-calorie program, so it says nothing about keto or fasting and little about long-standing diabetes.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Five-year extension of a UK primary-care trial in which 149 people with type 2 diabetes of under 6 years were assigned to a diet-replacement weight program and 149 to usual care; at 2 years 36% of participants in the program were in remission. At 5 years 11 of 85 (13%) extension participants who kept low-intensity support were in remission versus 5 of 93 (5%) original controls, and 26% of those in remission at year 2 remained in remission; the original program group was in remission at 27% of visits versus 4% for controls.

Limits: The 5-year data come from an extension with a smaller, self-selected group, and remission was tied to keeping the weight off.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes, Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Two-year results of DiRECT (149 per group). Diabetes remission was 53 (36%) in the intervention group versus 5 (3%) in controls (adjusted OR 25.82, 95% CI 8.25 to 80.84), weight loss of 15 kg or more occurred in 17 (11%) versus 3 (2%), and post hoc 29 (64%) of 45 who kept off at least 10 kg were in remission.

Limits: Remission fell from 46% at one year to 36% at two, and the 10 kg analysis was post hoc.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Swedish registry cohort of 1,672,983 girls and women aged 10 to 30, followed from 2006 through 2017. Cumulative incidence of cervical cancer by age 31 was 47 per 100,000 in vaccinated women versus 94 per 100,000 in unvaccinated women; the adjusted rate ratio was 0.12 (95% CI 0.00 to 0.34) for vaccination before age 17 and 0.47 (95% CI 0.27 to 0.75) at ages 17 to 30.

Limits: Observational, with only 19 cancers among vaccinated women, and follow-up that ends at age 31.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Prospective cohort of 139,691 adults in 17 countries followed a median 4.0 years with 3,379 deaths. Per 5 kg lower grip strength, the hazard ratio was 1.16 (95% CI 1.13 to 1.20) for all-cause mortality, 1.17 (1.11 to 1.24) for cardiovascular mortality, 1.07 (1.02 to 1.11) for myocardial infarction, and 1.09 (1.05 to 1.15) for stroke; grip predicted all-cause and cardiovascular death better than systolic blood pressure.

Limits: Observational with a short median follow-up, and it shows grip strength predicts outcomes, not that training grip changes them.

Cited on:Training, Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Ten healthy men and seven women sat in an 80°C (176°F) sauna for 1 hour twice a day for 7 days. Men's growth hormone rose 16-fold and prolactin 2.3-fold, but the growth hormone rise faded after day 3; cortisol and ACTH fell, and five of seven women had transient amenorrhea.

Limits: Seventeen people, a far heavier schedule than anyone uses at home, and the authors tie the hormone changes to dehydration; it shows no health outcome.

Cited on:Sauna

What it found: Eight recipients of HLA-mismatched kidneys plus bioengineered stem and facilitating-cell grafts received fludarabine, 200-cGy total body irradiation, and cyclophosphamide. Five had durable chimerism and donor-specific tolerance and were weaned off all immunosuppression 1 year after transplant, and no recipient developed graft-versus-host disease.

Limits: Eight patients, no randomized comparison, and the abstract reports follow-up only through the first year.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: Umbrella review of 69 meta-analyses. In short sleepers each hour less per 24 hours went with a 3% to 11% higher risk of all-cause mortality, coronary heart disease, osteoporosis, stroke, and type 2 diabetes; in long sleepers each hour more went with a 7% to 17% higher risk of stroke mortality, coronary heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes in adults.

Limits: A review of meta-analyses of mostly observational studies, so it inherits their confounding and cannot show cause.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Meta-analysis of 13 prospective studies with 7,680 cardiovascular disease cases: comparing the top with the bottom third of blood levels, 15:0 was not linked to cardiovascular disease overall (RR 0.94, 95% CI 0.77 to 1.15), though a subgroup analysis linked it to less heart failure (RR 0.72, 0.55 to 0.95), and 17:0 was linked to less disease (RR 0.82, 0.68 to 0.99).

Limits: Pooled observational cohorts using blood markers of dairy fat, so it cannot show that raising C15:0 with a supplement would change risk.

Cited on:fatty15 (C15:0)

What it found: Six-week, four-arm, randomized, double-blind trial of 48 amateur runners given 300, 600, or 1,200 mg/day NMN or placebo. Oxygen uptake, percent of VO2max, and power at the ventilatory thresholds rose more in the 600 and 1,200 mg groups than control; VO2max and peak power did not differ.

Limits: Twelve per group, six weeks, mostly young men, and the supplier of NMN and placebo was acknowledged for contributing to the research.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Primer on atherosclerosis: fibrofatty lesions form in the artery wall and probably require LDL; hypertension, smoking, and diabetes are established risk factors, inflammation and clonal hematopoiesis are emerging ones, and thrombotic complications cause most heart attacks and many strokes.

Limits: A review article that summarizes the field and gives no new data.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Hass Avocado Trial: 1,008 adults with a large waist were randomized to one avocado a day or their habitual diet for 6 months. Visceral fat did not differ (0.017 L, 95% CI -0.024 to 0.058), while LDL cholesterol showed a modest, nominally significant reduction in the avocado group.

Limits: The main outcome (visceral fat) was null, the LDL result was secondary and the abstract gives no numbers, and I did not verify who funded the trial.

Cited on:Superfoods

What it found: Sixty-eight Navy SEAL trainees were randomly given 100, 200, or 300 mg of caffeine or placebo after 72 hours of sleep deprivation with continuous stress. Sleep loss and environmental stress worsened performance and mood, and caffeine at 200 and 300 mg improved vigilance, reaction time, and alertness; the authors suggest 200 mg was the best dose.

Limits: A study of imposed sleep loss during SEAL training, which says nothing about a chosen nightly sleep schedule.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: ACHIEVE randomized 977 adults aged 70 to 84 with untreated hearing loss (490 to hearing aids and counseling, 487 to health education) for 3 years. The primary outcome, 3-year change in global cognition, did not differ (-0.200 versus -0.202 SD, difference 0.002, 95% CI -0.077 to 0.081, p=0.96), though the effect differed between the two recruited cohorts (interaction p=0.010).

Limits: The overall result was null and unmasked, and the possible benefit in the higher-risk cohort comes from a subgroup comparison that the authors present as a suggestion.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests, Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: TRAVERSE randomized 5,246 men aged 45 to 80 with symptoms of hypogonadism, two fasting testosterone levels below 300 ng/dL, and existing or high risk of cardiovascular disease to testosterone gel or placebo. Major cardiovascular events were 7.0% versus 7.3% (HR 0.96, 95% CI 0.78 to 1.17), meeting the noninferiority margin, with more atrial fibrillation, acute kidney injury, and pulmonary embolism on testosterone.

Limits: It tested replacement in men with symptoms and low levels, so it says nothing about testosterone in men with normal levels, and the 300 ng/dL line was an entry rule, not a diagnostic standard; AbbVie and others funded it.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: SELECT randomized 17,604 adults aged 45 or older with cardiovascular disease, a BMI of 27 or higher, and no diabetes to once-weekly semaglutide 2.4 mg or placebo for a mean follow-up of 39.8 months. The primary composite (cardiovascular death, nonfatal heart attack, or nonfatal stroke) was 6.5% versus 8.0% (HR 0.80, 95% CI 0.72 to 0.90), and 16.6% versus 8.2% stopped the drug or placebo because of adverse events.

Limits: Only people who already had cardiovascular disease were enrolled, the trial was of semaglutide, so it cannot be applied to other weight-loss drugs, and Novo Nordisk funded it.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: The 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission on dementia prevention, intervention, and care, the source of the risk-factor list on the page. Its PubMed record has no abstract, so the page takes its figures from two secondary summaries (adi2024lancet and newsmedical2024lancet), not from this record.

Limits: I could not open the full text, so the page cites the report's conclusions only through two summaries of it, and its preventable share is an estimate that assumes the risk factors are causal.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: A presidential advisory that updates the cardiovascular health score the American Heart Association defined in 2010 from 7 metrics to 8, with each metric scored from 0 to 100.

Limits: A scoring framework, not a trial; the abstract does not say how much risk any score change removes.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Seven Tuscan reports of acute hepatitis to the Italian phytovigilance system (through September 2019) plus a systematic review of 23 published cases: in all 7 Tuscan cases the product was a high-bioavailability formulation with a high curcumin dose and most improved after stopping, and in the 23 published cases most patients were also taking another medication and 16 improved after stopping.

Limits: Case reports and spontaneous reports cannot give how often it happens or prove cause, and many patients took other drugs.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP

What it found: Sixty-day randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in 60 stressed adults taking 240 mg/day of standardized ashwagandha extract. Anxiety (HAM-A) fell more than placebo (P = .040) and morning cortisol fell more (P < .001), but DASS-21 stress scores were only nearly significant (P = .096).

Limits: Sixty people for 60 days, one extract, and the lead author has previously received funding from an ashwagandha extract maker.

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: Forty female college students were randomized to 16 weeks of yoga or a control group. Single-leg stance improved 5.35 seconds, sit-and-reach 3.5 cm, and the splits test 6 cm, while the control group showed no significant change.

Limits: Forty young women in one setting over 16 weeks, so it does not tell us about other groups or longer follow-up.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Double-blind crossover study in 14 healthy young people comparing seven formulations of 100 mg CoQ10 by plasma AUC over 48 hours: absorption differed significantly between formulations, the two best were softgels with ubiquinone or ubiquinol, and the dissolving matrix, preservative, and added vitamin C all mattered.

Limits: Fourteen young, healthy people taking single doses, and it did not test a sustained-release capsule or a cyclodextrin complex.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: Company marketing page, undated (copyright 2026; retrieved 2026-11-05), claiming the ingredients were validated in double-blind human studies and citing a recent survey in which 82 percent reported lower fatigue, 44 percent improved attention, and 70 percent lower stress.

Limits: Marketing page that gives no sample size, method, comparison group, sponsor, or publication for the survey.

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: Company FAQ, undated (copyright 2026; retrieved 2026-11-05), listing caffeine per product (0, 55, 165 mg), with no Supplement Facts panel and a statement that claims have not been evaluated by the FDA.

Limits: Seller's own page with no ingredient amounts.

Cited on:Magic Mind, The companies behind what I take

What it found: Company home page, undated (copyright 2026; retrieved 2026-11-05), listing Free (0 mg caffeine), Original (55 mg), and MAXX (165 mg), and naming lion's mane, bacopa, Cognizin, ceremonial-grade matcha, rhodiola, cordyceps, B vitamins, L-theanine, ashwagandha, turmeric, and vitamins C and D, with no per-ingredient amounts.

Limits: Seller's own marketing page with no Supplement Facts panel or page date; the product pages with the panel returned a rate-limit error and could not be opened.

Cited on:Magic Mind, The companies behind what I take

What it found: Company science page, undated (copyright 2026; retrieved 2026-11-05), citing ingredient studies and describing a 60-day study conducted by Magic Mind in which 82 people completed surveys at baseline, Day 30, and Day 60 and reported lower stress; it gives no per-ingredient doses, no p-values, and no control group.

Limits: Seller's own page; the study is a company-run survey whose funder, journal, and independent investigators are not named, and the linked PDF text could not be read.

Cited on:Magic Mind, The companies behind what I take

What it found: Company-published comparison page (last updated October 16, 2026) stating Original has 55 mg caffeine and a 1,925 mg Nulixer blend in one 2 fl oz shot, with the dose of each nootropic and adaptogen hidden inside the blend, and that vitamin amounts are printed on the label.

Limits: A company advertisement, so its descriptions of its own product are not independent, and it does not list vitamin amounts.

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: Healthy young men were given placebo, tyrosine (150 mg/kg), caffeine (300 mg per 70 kg), phentermine (37.5 mg), or d-amphetamine (20 mg) in the afternoon following overnight sleep deprivation. All drugs improved some measures; tyrosine was less effective than d-amphetamine but still improved performance on several tests.

Limits: The abstract gives no sample size and no tyrosine-versus-placebo statistics, and sleep deprivation here was one night.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: Before-and-after study of 11 Stanford varsity basketball players: a 2 to 4 week baseline, then 5 to 7 weeks aiming for 10 hours in bed. Nightly sleep rose by 110.9 minutes, a timed sprint dropped from 16.2 to 15.5 seconds, and free throw and 3-point percentages each rose about 9% (P<0.001).

Limits: Eleven athletes, no separate control group, and the abstract does not rule out practice or motivation effects.

Cited on:Training

What it found: Double-blind within-subject study of 19 volunteers in 35°C water with placebo, about 10°C water with placebo, and about 10°C water with tyrosine (150 mg/kg in a food bar before each of two 90-minute immersions). In the cold, correct responses on a match-to-sample memory task fell (p<.05); with tyrosine they increased (p<.05).

Limits: Nineteen people tested in a water-immersion lab rather than in real cold exposure, and the abstract does not say the session order was randomized.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: Meta-analysis of 8 articles on regular cold-water immersion (15°C or colder) alongside training. With resistance training it hurt strength outcomes (overall standardized mean difference -0.60; 95% CI -0.87 to -0.33) and ballistic performance (-0.61; -1.11 to -0.11); with endurance training it had no effect on maximal aerobic power (-0.07) or time-trial performance (0.00).

Limits: Only 8 articles, mostly small trials in healthy, trained or active adults, so the size of the effect is uncertain even though the direction is consistent.

Cited on:Sauna, Cold plunge

What it found: Retrospective cohort of 122,007 adults (mean age 53.4) referred for treadmill testing at one Cleveland clinic from 1991 to 2014, followed a median of 8.4 years with 13,637 deaths. Elite fitness versus low fitness carried an adjusted mortality hazard ratio of 0.20 (95% CI 0.16 to 0.24), and elite versus high fitness 0.77 (0.63 to 0.95); low fitness was comparable to or worse than coronary artery disease (HR 1.29), smoking (1.41), or diabetes (1.40).

Limits: Retrospective, single-center, and observational, in people referred for treadmill testing, so it shows association rather than proof that raising fitness lowers death risk.

Cited on:Training, Cardiovascular disease, explained, Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Double-blind crossover study of 16 male collegiate rugby players who took HMB plus creatine (5 g of each daily) or creatine plus placebo (5 g creatine and 5 g placebo daily) for 6 weeks. The authors concluded that adding HMB to creatine offered no extra benefit over creatine alone.

Limits: Sixteen players, 13 completed the first phase and 8 the crossover, and the trial measured maintenance across a season rather than gains.

Cited on:Creatine, HMB

What it found: Meta-analysis of eleven prospective study populations (about 90,000 person-years, over 2,000 fractures). Each 1 standard deviation lower bone density raised fracture risk 1.5-fold (95% CI 1.4 to 1.6), vertebral fracture risk 2.3-fold with a spine measurement, and hip fracture risk 2.6-fold with a hip measurement.

Limits: A 1996 pooling of older cohorts; bone density predicts fractures but, as the abstract's comparison with blood pressure and cholesterol shows, it is a risk marker and not a diagnosis of who will fracture.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial (2 x 6 weeks) of 500 mg NR twice daily; 24 of 30 randomized adults completed it. Blood-cell NAD+ rose about 60 percent (one-tailed P = 0.048); blood pressure and arterial stiffness changes were exploratory and not significant after correction; adverse events were mild.

Limits: Small, 6 weeks, a one-tailed primary test, and ChromaDex, which sells NR, supplied the pills and part of the funding.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: A trial protocol, with no results, for a randomized crossover study of a three-day water-only fast with or without glycogen-depleting exercise, measuring autophagy in blood-derived cells.

Limits: A protocol paper with no outcome data (and a participant count that differs between sections), so it shows that autophagy after a 3-day fast in people is still being tested, not that it happens.

Cited on:Fasting: my monthly 3-day water and broth fast

What it found: Cross-sectional study of human pelvic skin from 49 people aged 0 to 77. NAD+ fell with age in males (r = -0.706, p = 0.001) and females (r = -0.537, p = 0.01), alongside rising DNA damage and PARP activity.

Limits: Skin from surgical patients, correlational only, so it cannot show that low NAD+ causes aging or that supplements reverse it.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial of 30 healthy men given 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 g a day of L-tyrosine (each man received four of the five doses) with 2-week washouts. Up to 4 g a day for 4 weeks produced no dose-related lab abnormalities and no serious adverse events, and the authors propose 4 g a day as the highest tested dose without observable adverse effects.

Limits: Healthy men only, 4 weeks, the trial excluded people with thyroid disorders and people taking MAO inhibitors, and it was funded by Ajinomoto, which employs two of the four authors.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: The paper that introduced HOMA: a computer model of the glucose-insulin feedback loop used to estimate insulin resistance and beta-cell function from fasting glucose and insulin. The insulin-resistance estimate correlated with the euglycemic clamp (Rs = 0.88, p < 0.0001), and precision was limited, with coefficients of variation of 31% for insulin resistance and 32% for beta-cell deficit.

Limits: A 1985 validation in small samples against clamps; the abstract gives no diagnostic cutoff, and a single fasting estimate varies by about a third.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Six metabolically healthy men aged 18 to 40 stayed 4 days at a research center and fasted 72 hours on water while wearing continuous glucose monitors. The fast lowered blood glucose and caused frequent hypoglycemic episodes, and brain glial acetate metabolism rose from 53.5% to 61.9% (p = 0.005). The glucose, free fatty acid, ketone, and insulin values on the page come from Table 2 and the results text of the full text.

Limits: Six men in one lab fast, designed to study the brain and hypoglycemia rather than health outcomes; the metabolite table is in the full text, not the abstract.

Cited on:Fasting: my monthly 3-day water and broth fast, Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Trade-press report on Roche's AAIC 2026 presentation of PrevenTRON, a phase 3 trial that will enroll about 1,600 cognitively unimpaired adults aged 55 to 80 with elevated plasma p-tau217, with time to clinical progression as the primary endpoint. It also reports phase 1b/2a BRAINSHUTTLE AD data: at 3.6 mg/kg, amyloid fell below the 24-centiloid threshold in 91% (49/54) after 28 weeks, and ARIA-E occurred in fewer than 5% (4/149) across the 1.8 and 3.6 mg/kg cohorts.

Limits: A secondary report of company-presented early data and a trial design with no start date, so the numbers are not peer-reviewed efficacy results.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Phase 2 randomized trial of daily lixisenatide versus placebo in 156 people with early Parkinson's disease (78 per group) for 12 months. The motor score changed by -0.04 points on lixisenatide and +3.04 on placebo (difference 3.08, 95% CI 0.86 to 5.30, P = 0.007); after a 2-month washout the scores were 17.7 on lixisenatide and 20.6 on placebo, secondary endpoints did not differ substantially, and nausea occurred in 46% and vomiting in 13%.

Limits: A phase 2 trial of 12 months in 156 people, with a symptom score that could reflect a drug effect on symptoms rather than slowing of the disease, and the authors call for longer and larger trials.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Case study of two patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia who reached complete remission in 2010 after CD19-directed CAR T cells and still had detectable CAR T cells more than ten years later with sustained remission. A highly activated CD4+ population came to dominate, with a repertoire led by a few clones.

Limits: Two patients only, selected because they responded, so it shows that a lasting remission can happen but not how often.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Italy's phytovigilance system received 28 spontaneous reports of acute hepatitis, mostly cholestatic, linked to turmeric supplements in the first six months of 2019; causality was at least possible in all but one, the products were tested for drugs, heavy metals, aflatoxins, pesticides, dyes, and pyrrolizidine alkaloids, and regulatory action followed.

Limits: Spontaneous reports, so they show a signal rather than how common the injury is.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP

What it found: Company press release of October 22, 2026, not a peer-reviewed paper; it says the results were accepted for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the phase 3 INTerpath-001 trial of 1,137 patients with resected stage IIB to IV melanoma, adding intismeran autogene to pembrolizumab gave a recurrence-free survival hazard ratio of 0.58 (95% CI 0.45 to 0.75) at 24.6 months median follow-up, with 2-year recurrence-free survival of 82.2% versus 70.0%; overall survival was not yet mature.

Limits: A sponsor press release with no peer review yet, no overall survival result, and no difference between the arms in the first six months.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Meta-analysis of 28 controlled trials (723 healthy adults aged 18 to 45, mean baseline VO2max 40.8 mL/kg/min). VO2max rose 4.9 mL/kg/min with endurance training and 5.5 with high-intensity intervals versus no exercise, and intervals beat endurance training by 1.2 mL/kg/min (95% confidence limits 0.9).

Limits: Young and middle-aged healthy adults only, mostly short trials, and a small average edge for intervals over endurance work.

Cited on:Training, Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: A prospective study of 512,715 Chinese adults followed for about 10 years, with genotype-based (Mendelian randomization) analysis in men. Per 280 g/week of alcohol, genetically predicted intake was linked to intracerebral hemorrhage (RR 1.58, 95% CI 1.36 to 1.84) and ischemic stroke (RR 1.27, 95% CI 1.13 to 1.43) but not to heart attack (RR 0.96, 95% CI 0.78 to 1.18).

Limits: Chinese men were the genetic analysis group (only 2% of women drank most weeks), and the genotype method measures lifelong intake differences, not the effect of a person cutting back.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Sixteen healthy women who practiced Bikram regularly were measured during one 90-minute class, with no control group. Heart rate averaged 126.6 beats per minute and peaked at an average of 168.1, systolic pressure did not rise significantly, and diastolic pressure fell significantly below baseline, by 10.1% overall.

Limits: Sixteen women in one session with no control and no reported core temperatures in the abstract.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Systematic review of HMB trials: 13 in healthy trained young people, 11 in healthy untrained young people, 9 in patients with chronic diseases, and 6 in elderly subjects. The authors concluded HMB helps prevent exercise-related muscle damage and limits muscle loss in chronic disease, that the usual dose is 3 g a day, and that well-designed trials are still needed.

Limits: A 2013 review, so it predates the newer meta-analyses that found little or no effect in trained people.

Cited on:HMB

What it found: Meta-analysis of fourteen validation studies of consumer wearables that estimate VO2max. Devices using resting-condition information overestimated VO2max (bias 2.17 ml/kg/min; limits of agreement -13.07 to 17.41), while devices using exercise-based information had lower error (bias -0.09; limits -9.92 to 9.74), and the authors say individual-level error is still large.

Limits: A published erratum for this paper appeared in October 2026 (PMID 42867627) and I could not read what it changed, so the numbers are from the 2022 abstract and may have been revised.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Systematic review and meta-analysis of 16 prospective cohort studies. Muscle-strengthening activity went with a 10 to 17% lower risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, total cancer, diabetes, and lung cancer, with the largest reduction (about 10 to 20%) at roughly 30 to 60 minutes per week for all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, and total cancer.

Limits: Observational cohorts, so it cannot show that lifting caused the lower risk; no association was found for colon, kidney, bladder, or pancreatic cancer, and the abstract gives no participant total.

Cited on:Training, Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Phase 1 trial (published online November 13, 2024; in print January 2025) of GD2-CAR T cells that enrolled thirteen patients with H3K27M+ diffuse midline glioma (DIPG and spinal), 11 of whom received intravenous cells, 3 at the lower dose and 8 at the higher dose; 3 at the higher dose had dose-limiting cytokine release syndrome. Nine patients had neurological benefit, four had major tumor reductions (52%, 54%, 91%, and 100%), and one had a complete response ongoing more than 30 months after enrollment.

Limits: A small phase 1 safety trial with no control group, so it cannot show a survival benefit or how many responses last.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Healio news report that Lilly sued six companies it says sell counterfeit, unapproved versions of retatrutide, that retatrutide had not yet been reviewed by the FDA, that Lilly plans to submit a biologics license application in the first quarter of 2027, and that an FDA statement of June 15 said retatrutide and cagrilintide are not FDA approved for any condition and cannot be used in compounding under federal law.

Limits: A secondary news report, used only for the FDA-review status and the lawsuits; the FDA's own page is the primary source for the FDA's statements.

Cited on:Retatrutide

What it found: Twenty-four studies (n = 1,395) were reviewed and 20 meta-analyzed. Versus passive control yoga reduced depression severity (standardized mean difference -0.43, 95% CI -0.80 to -0.07), versus active control the effect was not significant (-0.22, 95% CI -0.67 to 0.23), remission was more likely versus passive (odds ratio 3.20) and active control (2.04), and certainty ranged from moderate to very low.

Limits: Certainty of evidence was moderate to very low, and the active-control result was not significant.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Double-blind trial of 30 Japanese adults aged 50 to 80 with mild cognitive impairment (15 per group) taking four 250 mg tablets, three times daily (about 2,880 mg of powder a day), for 16 weeks. Cognitive scale scores were higher than placebo at weeks 8, 12, and 16 and fell significantly 4 weeks after stopping.

Limits: Thirty people with mild cognitive impairment, no p-values in the abstract, and gains faded after the supplement was stopped.

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: Single-dose, double-blind, four-way crossover study in 24 healthy adults: the Theracurmin drink's 0 to 8 hour AUC was 1.5 to 4.0 times, and its peak plasma curcumin 1.8 to 3.8 times, that of three other curcumin beverages sold in Japan.

Limits: Single doses in 24 healthy adults, measured as blood levels only, compared with other beverages rather than with a capsule, and the authors describe the Theracurmin preparations as their own.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP

What it found: Prospective cohort of 960 older adults (aged 58 to 99) followed a mean 4.7 years. Those in the top fifth of green leafy vegetable intake (median 1.3 servings a day) declined more slowly on cognitive tests, a difference the authors equated to being 11 years younger.

Limits: Observational with food questionnaires, so diet cannot be separated from other healthy habits.

Cited on:Superfoods

What it found: Q-SYMBIO: 420 patients with moderate to severe chronic heart failure randomized to coenzyme Q10 100 mg three times daily or placebo on top of standard therapy. Short-term endpoints did not change, but major adverse cardiovascular events at 2 years were 15% versus 26% (HR 0.50, 95% CI 0.32 to 0.80, P = 0.003), with lower cardiovascular mortality (9% vs 16%) and all-cause mortality (10% vs 18%).

Limits: Heart-failure patients on standard drugs, not healthy people, a modest-sized trial whose primary short-term endpoints showed nothing, and a later health-technology review rated concerns about risk of bias and plausibility.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: Meta-analysis of 49 randomized trials with 1,863 participants doing resistance training for at least 6 weeks. Protein supplementation added 2.49 kg to 1RM strength (95% CI 0.64 to 4.33) and 0.30 kg of fat-free mass (0.09 to 0.52), with no further fat-free mass gain above about 1.62 g/kg/day of total protein; the benefit shrank with age.

Limits: The gains are modest, the 1.62 g/kg/day breakpoint is a statistical estimate from pooled trials, and the trials tested added protein, not whole-diet patterns.

Cited on:Training

What it found: Prospective single-arm study of 35,878 people aged 50 or older, with 32,007 analyzable for performance. The cancer detection rate was 0.54%, positive predictive value 60.3% (95% CI 54.5 to 65.8), specificity 99.64%, and episode sensitivity 39.3% for all cancers and 69.8% for a prespecified 12-cancer subgroup; 213 participants (0.6%) had invasive procedures after a positive test.

Limits: A single-arm study with 12 months of follow-up and several authors who work for or hold stock in the test's maker, and it cannot show that the test saves lives.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Systematic review of 21 studies, with 12 pooled for serum creatinine (177 on creatine, 263 controls). Serum creatinine was slightly higher with creatine (mean difference 0.07, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.12, p = 0.03), while glomerular filtration rate did not differ significantly from controls.

Limits: Small pooled groups, and the abstract gives no doses and does not report cystatin C or eGFR, so it shows creatinine rising without a significant GFR change but does not test cystatin C itself.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Randomized double-blind trial in people who had knee cartilage surgery (50 enrolled, 43 examined) taking Theracurmin with 180 mg/day of curcumin or placebo for 12 months: pain and function scores did not differ between groups, but cartilage stiffness and surface roughness at second-look arthroscopy were better with Theracurmin.

Limits: Small, surgical patients rather than the general public, symptoms did not differ between groups, one author lists an affiliation with Theravalues Corporation, and the full text says Theravalues financially supported the study.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP

What it found: Randomized double-blind trial in 50 patients with knee osteoarthritis (Kellgren-Lawrence grade II or III) given Theracurmin with 180 mg/day of curcumin or placebo for 8 weeks: knee pain on a visual analog scale was lower on Theracurmin at 8 weeks except in patients with the lowest starting scores, celecoxib dependence fell more, and there were no major side effects.

Limits: Fifty people for 8 weeks, the abstract gives no numeric effect sizes, the authors call the potential modest, and the full text says Theravalues Corporation, which developed Theracurmin, financially supported the study and employed two authors full time.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP

What it found: Open-label, uncontrolled six-month study of 50 people with knee osteoarthritis taking Theracurmin with 180 mg/day of curcumin: 34 (75.6%) were judged to be in the effective group and 11 in the not-effective group, five dropped out, and no major side effects were reported, including on blood chemistry.

Limits: No placebo group or blinding, so improvement could be natural fluctuation or expectation, and the "effective" label is the authors' own.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP

What it found: Twelve-week randomized, double-blind trial of 100 adults aged 50 to 85 with age-associated memory impairment (49 on 500 mg/day Cognizin citicoline, 51 on placebo). Episodic memory improved more with citicoline (0.15 vs 0.06, P = 0.0025), as did composite memory (3.78 vs 0.72, P = 0.0052).

Limits: One 12-week trial in people with mild memory complaints, and two authors are from Kyowa Hakko Bio, the Cognizin maker.

Cited on:Magic Mind

What it found: Review of the sources of error and variability in DXA body composition in athletes and active people, proposing a standardized scan protocol covering subject preparation, positioning aids, and adjustment of automatic regional segmentation, plus reporting requirements for studies.

Limits: A methodology review whose abstract gives no numbers, so it shows why scans must be standardized but not how large each error is.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Editorial describing United Therapeutics' EXPAND trial (NCT06878560), the first regulated clinical trial of a gene-edited pig kidney (UKidney): an open-label, single-arm, multicenter study with an initial cohort that is to expand pending a safety review, NYU Langone Health as the first site, and a first transplant announced in November 2025. The trial's age range, cohort sizes, and endpoint timing are in the editorial's full text, not in an abstract.

Limits: A one-author editorial with no abstract that is inconsistent about what "EXPAND" stands for, so trial details should be checked against the registry.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: Randomized trial of 220 liver transplants comparing normothermic machine perfusion with conventional cold storage. Perfusion cut graft injury by 50% (enzyme release), cut the organ discard rate by 50%, and allowed a 54% longer mean preservation time, while bile duct complications, graft survival, and patient survival did not differ significantly.

Limits: Not powered to show better survival, and it tested livers only.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: NHLBI page stating that each sleep cycle lasts about 80 to 100 minutes, that most people go through four to six cycles a night and may wake briefly between them, and that deep sleep comes mostly early in the night and REM sleep mostly later.

Limits: A patient-education page giving an average, and cycle length varies between people and across the night.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: NIH page (updated March 17, 2023): about one in three US adults 65 to 74 has hearing loss and nearly half of those older than 75 have difficulty hearing; audiologists have specialized training in identifying and measuring hearing loss and otolaryngologists look for causes and treatments.

Limits: A public information page that does not describe the hearing test itself or mention dementia.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Randomized trial of 53,454 high-risk U.S. participants given three annual low-dose CT scans (26,722) or chest radiographs (26,732). Lung-cancer deaths fell by 20.0% (95% CI 6.8 to 26.7) and all-cause deaths by 6.7% (95% CI 1.2 to 13.6) with CT, but 24.2% of CT screens were positive and 96.4% of those positives were false positives.

Limits: Done at 33 U.S. medical centers in heavy smokers, so real-world benefit depends on who is screened and how nodules are followed.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Says Nature's Way's parent company is Schwabe, gives its primary headquarters as 3480 E. Mason Street, Green Bay, Wisconsin, and lists Integrative Therapeutics under its brands.

Limits: The page does not contain a formal ownership statement about Integrative Therapeutics itself.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: CORALreef Lipids trial in 2,909 adults with a prior atherosclerotic event or at risk for a first one, randomized 2:1 to enlicitide 20 mg or placebo daily for 52 weeks. At week 24 LDL-C fell 57.1% with enlicitide and rose 3.0% with placebo, an adjusted difference of 55.8 percentage points (95% CI -60.9 to -50.7).

Limits: A lipid endpoint funded by MSD, and the abstract gives no numeric side-effect rates or heart-attack outcomes.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Unblinded trial randomizing 145 children aged 2 to 16 to start a ketogenic diet now or after a 3-month delay (103 analyzed). At 3 months the diet group had 62.0% of baseline seizures versus 136.9% in controls, and 38% versus 6% had more than a 50% reduction; common side effects were constipation, vomiting, low energy, and hunger.

Limits: Unblinded, only 3 months of comparison, many dropouts, and in children with epilepsy, so it says little about adults using keto for general health.

Cited on:Keto

What it found: Test-performance analysis of the intervention arm of NHS-Galleri (142,250 participants randomized in all). Positive results were returned for 722 of 70,325 (1.03%) in round 1, 518 of 64,498 (0.80%) in round 2, and 561 of 62,323 (0.90%) in round 3, with 937 cancers found and positive predictive value of 58.0%, 50.4%, and 45.8% by round; specificity was 99.50% to 99.60%.

Limits: Describes how the test performed in the intervention arm, not whether screening improves outcomes.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Five-year analysis of the single-arm phase 2 ZUMA-1 trial of axicabtagene ciloleucel in 101 treated patients with refractory large B-cell lymphoma: 83% objective response, 58% complete response, and 31% still in response at a median follow-up of 63.1 months. Estimated 5-year overall survival was 42.6% and 5-year disease-specific survival was 51.0%.

Limits: A single-arm trial with no control group, and the "curative potential" in the title is the authors' reading of a plateau, not a proven cure.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Double-blind study of about 13 hours of continuous nighttime work involving one night of lost sleep. Six hours in, half the participants received 150 mg/kg of tyrosine in a split dose and half a cornstarch placebo; tyrosine reduced the usual decline on a psychomotor task and lowered lapse probability on a vigilance task, with benefits lasting about 3 hours.

Limits: The abstract does not give the sample size, the benefit was brief, and the authors say other doses and timing still need testing.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: Says Schwabe North America, based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, consists of three brands: Nature's Way, Enzymatic Therapy, and Integrative Therapeutics, and that its parent, Dr. Willmar Schwabe Pharmaceuticals, is headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Limits: A 2013 article; it shows ownership as of that year, which the current Nature's Way page supports only indirectly.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: Company press release filed July 24, 2026: the European CHMP adopted a positive opinion recommending marketing authorization for obicetrapib 10 mg alone and with ezetimibe 10 mg for primary hypercholesterolemia or mixed dyslipidemia, with a European Commission decision expected in the second half of 2026. It mentions no US filing and describes the PREVAIL outcomes trial (more than 9,500 randomized patients, enrollment completed April 2024) as ongoing.

Limits: A company document that gives no US regulatory status and no PREVAIL readout date; I could not confirm a European Commission decision on a Commission or EMA page.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: News summary of the 2024 Lancet Commission listing the 14 modifiable risk factors (less education, hearing impairment, high blood pressure, smoking, obesity, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes, excessive alcohol, traumatic brain injury, air pollution, social isolation, high LDL cholesterol, and untreated vision loss), with high LDL and hearing impairment at 7% of cases each, untreated vision loss at 2%, and the 12 older factors at about 40%. It says the estimates assume the risk factors are causal and do not guarantee that any individual will avoid dementia.

Limits: A secondary news summary, not the report itself; it gives life stages for only some factors and does not state the overall preventable share, which the page cites to the ADI summary.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: FINGER randomized 1,260 people aged 60 to 77 at elevated dementia risk to a 2-year program of diet, exercise, cognitive training, and vascular risk monitoring (631) or general health advice (629). The cognitive test score rose 0.022 per year more in the program group (95% CI 0.002 to 0.042, p=0.030), and adverse events (mostly musculoskeletal pain) occurred in 46 (7%) versus 6 (1%).

Limits: Two years is too short to show fewer dementia diagnoses, and the gain was small on a test battery, in a Finnish population selected for higher risk.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: STRENGTH randomized 13,078 high-risk patients on statins to 4 g a day of omega-3 carboxylic acids (EPA and DHA) or corn oil. The primary composite outcome occurred in 12.0% versus 12.2% (HR 0.99, 95% CI 0.90 to 1.09); the trial was stopped early for low probability of benefit, and GI side effects were more common on omega-3 (24.7% versus 14.7%).

Limits: Used a different omega-3 product than REDUCE-IT and a corn oil comparator, so the two trials cannot be cleanly compared.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: BROADWAY trial of 2,530 adults with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia or atherosclerotic disease on maximally tolerated lipid-lowering therapy, randomized 2:1 to obicetrapib 10 mg daily or placebo for 365 days. At day 84 LDL-C fell 29.9% with obicetrapib versus a 2.7% rise with placebo, a difference of 32.6 percentage points (95% CI -35.8 to -29.5), and adverse events were similar between groups.

Limits: A lipid-lowering trial funded by NewAmsterdam Pharma that cannot show fewer heart attacks; the PREVAIL outcomes trial is still running.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Phase 2 trial of 233 adults with Lp(a) of at least 175 nmol/L given oral muvalaplin or placebo for 12 weeks. On the intact Lp(a) assay the placebo-adjusted reduction was 47.6% at 10 mg a day, 81.7% at 60 mg, and 85.8% at 240 mg; high-sensitivity CRP did not change and no safety concerns were seen.

Limits: Twelve weeks, a lab-marker endpoint, and the effect on cardiovascular events is still unstudied.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: PADOVA randomized 586 people with early Parkinson's disease (293 per group) to prasinezumab 1,500 mg every 4 weeks or placebo for at least 76 weeks. The primary endpoint was not met: time to confirmed motor progression had a hazard ratio of 0.84 (95% CI 0.69 to 1.01, p=0.066), with serious adverse events in 34 of 292 (12%) versus 34 of 290 (12%); the authors describe prespecified exploratory evidence of clinical activity.

Limits: A missed primary endpoint funded by the maker, so the exploratory signal is a reason for the phase 3 trial and not a result.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: CLEAR Outcomes randomized 13,970 statin-intolerant patients to bempedoic acid or placebo for a median 40.6 months. LDL-C fell 29.2 mg/dL more than on placebo, and the four-part primary endpoint was 11.7% versus 13.3% (HR 0.87, 95% CI 0.79 to 0.96); gout was 3.1% versus 2.1% and cholelithiasis 2.2% versus 1.2%.

Limits: Statin-intolerant people with or at high risk for cardiovascular disease only, so the result does not show what bempedoic acid adds on top of a full statin dose, and Esperion Therapeutics funded it.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: ALPACA trial of 320 randomized adults with a median baseline Lp(a) of 253.9 nmol/L. Placebo-adjusted time-averaged Lp(a) change from day 60 to day 180 was -40.8 points at 16 mg, -75.2 at 96 mg, and -93.9 at the pooled 400 mg doses; serious adverse events occurred in 35 participants and none was judged related to treatment.

Limits: A lab-marker trial funded by Eli Lilly that cannot show fewer heart attacks, which the separate outcomes trial must answer.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Phase 2 trial of 178 patients with stable atherosclerotic disease and Lp(a) of at least 125 nmol/L. Time-averaged Lp(a) fell 85.6% with 450 mg every 24 weeks, 82.8% with 300 mg every 16 weeks, and 81.3% with 300 mg every 24 weeks versus pooled placebo over 36 weeks; the most common treatment-related effects were injection-site reactions.

Limits: A 36-week lab-marker trial that cannot show fewer heart attacks.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Analysis of web-survey data from 548 adults on carbohydrate-restricted diets plus a five-patient case series. Lower BMI was linked to larger LDL-C rises, and a subgroup of 100 with LDL-C of 200 mg/dL or higher, HDL-C of 80 or higher, and triglycerides of 70 or lower was labeled lean mass hyper-responders; carbohydrate reintroduction markedly lowered LDL-C in the five cases.

Limits: Self-reported survey data with no control group and no outcomes, so it describes a pattern but cannot show whether high LDL-C in this group is harmless.

Cited on:Keto

What it found: Company press release, not peer-reviewed. The trial of 8,323 patients with elevated Lp(a) and established cardiovascular disease did not meet its primary endpoint (cardiovascular death, nonfatal heart attack, nonfatal stroke, or urgent coronary revascularization requiring hospitalization); pelacarsen lowered Lp(a) but this did not translate into fewer cardiovascular events in the overall population (Lp(a) of 70 mg/dL or higher).

Limits: A topline statement with no effect sizes, safety data, or dose; full results are promised at an unnamed medical congress.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Lab tests worth knowing, Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Company press release, not peer-reviewed. ZEUS enrolled over 6,300 people with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and hsCRP of 2 mg/L or higher; once-monthly ziltivekimab 15 mg lowered IL-6 and hsCRP but did not reduce major adverse cardiovascular events (HR 0.99, 95% CI 0.88 to 1.11), and serious infections were more frequent.

Limits: A topline statement; the full data are still to be presented, and it tested one IL-6 antibody in people with kidney disease.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: NSF's own company listing shows Pure Encapsulations certified to NSF/ANSI 455-2, Good Manufacturing Practices for Dietary Supplements; the page lists no products, and SR-CoQ10 with PQQ is not named on it.

Limits: A company-level GMP listing, not a product certification, and it is not an NSF Certified for Sport listing; the page shows only a 2012 copyright line, so I could not date it.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ, The companies behind what I take

What it found: The certifier's own search for fatty15 returned no products.

Limits: A keyword search on 11/05/2026; I did not also search the Seraphina name.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: The certifier's own search for HMB listed products from brands including Transparent Labs, Klean Athlete, and XYMOGEN, and none from Optimum Nutrition on the results page saved.

Limits: A keyword search on 11/05/2026; the saved page shows pagination links, so the listing may not be complete, and it shows what NSF lists today, not what a brand may have tested under other programs.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: The certifier's own search for Integrative Therapeutics returned no products.

Limits: A keyword search on 11/05/2026; an empty result is not proof of no other certification.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: The certifier's own search for joyli returned no products.

Limits: A keyword search on 11/05/2026; an empty result is not proof of no other certification.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: The certifier's own search for Magic Mind returned no products.

Limits: A keyword search on 11/05/2026; an empty result is not proof of no other certification.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: The certifier's own search returned two Optimum Nutrition products, Gold Standard 100% Whey in Double Rich Chocolate and in Vanilla Ice Cream, and no HMB or creatine product.

Limits: A keyword search on 11/05/2026; the page prints a contradictory "No results matched your filter selections" line, and the listing changes with lot testing.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: The certifier's own search returned one Pure Encapsulations product, Pure Encapsulations Creatine (Canada), and no CoQ10 or PQQ product.

Limits: A keyword search on 11/05/2026; the page prints a contradictory "No results matched your filter selections" line.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: Trade report that the FDA granted the Natural Products Association citizen petition in part and denied it in part, concluding NMN is not excluded from the dietary supplement definition because it was marketed as a supplement in the U.S. before any IND authorization.

Limits: A secondary trade report, not the FDA letter, which could not be opened.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Eight-week randomized trial of heated hatha yoga versus a waitlist in adults with moderate-to-severe depression: 80 randomized, 65 analyzed (33 yoga, 32 waitlist), attending an average of 10.3 classes. Clinician-rated depression fell more with yoga (Cohen d = 1.04, P < .001), and 16 yoga participants versus 2 on the waitlist had at least a 50% drop in symptoms.

Limits: A waitlist control with no matched unheated-yoga arm, so it cannot separate heat from exercise, attention, or expectation, and 15 of 80 were not analyzed.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Fifteen subjects completed a 35°C control trial and two cold-water trials, one with tyrosine at 300 mg/kg in an energy bar. In the placebo cold trial match-to-sample performance fell 18% (p = 0.02) and marksmanship fell 14% (p = 0.002) versus control; the tyrosine trial did not differ from control. Step-test performance dropped 11% in both cold trials.

Limits: Fifteen people, one high dose, and no benefit on the physical (step) test.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: Dose-finding, double-blind trial of olpasiran in 281 patients with established atherosclerotic disease and Lp(a) above 150 nmol/L. At week 36 the placebo-adjusted Lp(a) change was -70.5% at 10 mg, -97.4% at 75 mg, -101.1% at 225 mg every 12 weeks, and -100.5% at 225 mg every 24 weeks; the most common drug-related events were injection-site reactions.

Limits: A dose-finding lab-marker trial funded by Amgen, so it shows Lp(a) falls but not that fewer heart attacks follow.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Randomized phase 3 RASolute 302 trial of 500 patients with previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer (248 on daraxonrasib, 252 on chemotherapy), 91.8% with RAS G12 mutations. In the RAS G12 population median overall survival was 13.2 versus 6.6 months (hazard ratio 0.40, P<0.001) and median progression-free survival was 7.3 versus 3.5 months.

Limits: An open-label trial in second-line patients that measures survival in months, so it shows longer survival and not remission or cure.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: A blinded randomized cross-over pilot trial in four men with Parkinson's disease: adaptive stimulation, which adjusts to brain-signal markers of high versus low dopaminergic states, improved motor symptoms and quality of life compared with clinically optimized standard stimulation.

Limits: Four patients, so it shows the approach is feasible and not how large or durable the benefit is.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: The maker's page for its creatine gummies: 5 g of creatine monohydrate per serving of 3 gummies, taken as 3 gummies daily. Outside its menu, which lists HMB 1000 Caps as a separate product, the page does not mention HMB, and it names no third-party certification.

Limits: The page gives sugar as 0 g in one place and 2 g in another, cites no studies on the gummies themselves, and shows no gummy count per container.

Cited on:Creatine, HMB, The companies behind what I take

What it found: The maker's page for HMB Caps: a serving is 3 capsules, there are 30 servings (90 capsules) per container, and a serving gives 3 g of calcium HMB (listed as "Calcium Beta-hydroxybutyrate Beta-methylbutyrate Monohydrate"). The directions say to take 3 capsules daily, and the page names no third-party certification and its product description does not mention creatine.

Limits: The page also says "Every capsule contains 3g of pure HMB," which conflicts with 3 g per 3-capsule serving, and the Supplement Facts panel is an image, so other ingredients were not read.

Cited on:HMB, The companies behind what I take

What it found: Says Optimum Nutrition was founded in 1986 by brothers Tony and Mike Costello and was purchased by Glanbia PLC; it names no certifier (such as Informed Choice or NSF) in its timeline.

Limits: Company history page; it gives no headquarters.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: A July 13, 2016 company release datelined Downers Grove, Illinois, saying Optimum Nutrition was established in 1986, is owned by Glanbia plc (which acquired it in 2008), and has its global headquarters in Downers Grove, Illinois.

Limits: A 2016 release, so the headquarters is as of 2016; it does not name the founders.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: The American Heart Association's annual statistical report on heart disease, stroke, and cardiovascular risk factors, with new chapters on cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome and tobacco and nicotine. The PubMed abstract gives no figures; the headline numbers used on this site come from the AHA news release.

Limits: The abstract carries no statistics, and a correction to the report was later published in Circulation 154(5), so figures should be checked against the corrected text.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Scottish population-based study of women born between January 1, 1988 and June 5, 1996, with data extracted in July 2020. No invasive cervical cancers were recorded in women vaccinated at age 12 or 13, regardless of dose number; for women vaccinated at 14 to 22 with 3 doses the rate was 3.2 per 100,000 person-years (95% CI 2.1 to 4.6), versus 8.4 per 100,000 person-years (95% CI 7.2 to 9.6) in unvaccinated women.

Limits: An observational registry study, not randomized, and the women vaccinated youngest were only in their mid-twenties when the data were pulled.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: A Swedish prospective study of 1,213 patients with cognitive symptoms applied fixed plasma p-tau217 cutoffs in primary care (307 and 208 patients) and secondary care (300 and 398 patients) cohorts. Accuracy for Alzheimer's pathology was 88% to 92% (AUC 0.96 to 0.97), and for clinical Alzheimer's, primary care physicians' accuracy was 61% and dementia specialists' 73%, versus 91% for the blood test.

Limits: Observational, in people who already had cognitive symptoms and were referred, so it does not show how the test performs as a screen in people without symptoms.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Participant-level meta-analysis of 15 cohorts (47,471 adults, 3,013 deaths, median follow-up 7.1 years). Versus the lowest quartile (median 3,553 steps a day), mortality hazard ratios were 0.60 at 5,801, 0.55 at 7,842, and 0.47 at 10,901 steps a day; benefit leveled off near 6,000 to 8,000 steps for adults 60 and older and 8,000 to 10,000 for younger adults.

Limits: Observational, so people who are healthier walk more; stepping rate beyond total steps showed mixed results (peak 30-minute pace HR 0.67, time at 100 or more steps a minute not significant).

Cited on:Training

What it found: The authors biofabricated 3D tissue constructs from human chondrocyte spheroids in microgravity aboard a space mission, which they describe as a first. Spheroid fusion matched their models, and the constructs showed good cell viability.

Limits: A small cartilage-tissue experiment, not an organ, and the abstract gives no numerical results.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: The prescribing information for the MAO inhibitor phenelzine (Nardil), updated June 6, 2025. Its contraindications section tells patients taking Nardil not to take sympathomimetic drugs or related compounds, lists L-tyrosine among those related compounds alongside methyldopa, L-dopa, L-tryptophan, and phenylalanine, and gives the risk of hypertensive crises as the reason.

Limits: A label for one MAO inhibitor, so it does not directly cover other MAO inhibitors.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: Chamber study of 19 women and 5 men, aged 18 to 57, through a standardized 90-minute Bikram class. Energy expenditure averaged 286 kcal, heart rate was 72.3% of predicted maximum in novices and 86.4% in experienced practitioners, sweat rate was 0.6 kg an hour in novices versus 1.1 kg an hour in experienced practitioners, and every posture rated light to moderate intensity.

Limits: Twenty-four people in a single session, and the abstract gives no room temperature or peak core temperature.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: An early FoundMyFitness episode in which Patrick treats heat stress as a way to build resilience, touching on heart disease risk, endurance, muscle, mood, and removal of metals.

Limits: I read only the entry in the publisher's feed, not a transcript, and it is a 2015 episode that predates the 2017 to 2018 Finnish cohort papers.

Cited on:Sauna

What it found: A solo episode that frames cold shock as hormesis and walks through cold exposure and the brain, inflammation, thermogenesis, and whole-body cryotherapy versus cold water immersion.

Limits: I read only the show-note entry in the publisher's feed, which gives no doses, and it is a 2016 episode.

Cited on:Cold plunge

What it found: Interview with Dominic D'Agostino, a University of South Florida researcher, on the therapeutic potential of ketosis, what to eat to stay in nutritional ketosis, ketones and the brain, and whether ketone supplements are a shortcut.

Limits: A podcast conversation from 2016, not a trial.

Cited on:Keto

What it found: Interview with Jed Fahey, a long-time isothiocyanate researcher at Johns Hopkins, on what sulforaphane is, the NRF2 pathway, whether cooking destroys it in broccoli, supplement quality, gut bacteria, and possible therapeutic uses.

Limits: A podcast conversation, not a trial.

Cited on:Superfoods

What it found: Interview with Eric Verdin, head of the Buck Institute, on how ketogenic diets might affect aging: ketones acting as HDAC inhibitors, PPAR-alpha's role, declining NAD+ with age, keto safety, and intermittent fasting as an alternative.

Limits: A podcast conversation from 2017, not a trial; it discusses mechanisms and hypotheses.

Cited on:Keto, Fasting: my monthly 3-day water and broth fast

What it found: Rhonda Patrick's solo Q&A; the show notes compare curcumin formulations (piperine about 20-fold, micronized crystalline curcumin 28-fold, NovaSOL micellar curcumin, and Meriva phytosome about 29-fold more bioavailable than unformulated curcumin) and take up whether curcumin blunts exercise benefits, and in the transcript she says two human trials of PQQ used 20 mg a day and found better cognition and mitochondrial function.

Limits: Members-only episode with a public summary and transcript; Theracurmin does not come up in either, the fold figures come from separate studies that she notes are not head-to-head comparisons, and the PQQ remark is her summary of two trials.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP, CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: Two-hour listener Q&A with Jed Fahey on sulforaphane: the minimum effective daily dose, how hard it is to measure sulforaphane in foods, preserving it in cooked food, how often to eat broccoli sprouts and how long the effects last, brain glutathione and cancer, supplement alternatives, and safety.

Limits: A podcast conversation, not a trial.

Cited on:Superfoods

What it found: Podcast interview with Bill Harris, co-inventor of the Omega-3 Index: red blood cell omega-3 as a measure of long-term status, plant versus marine sources, genetic variants that change omega-3 needs, whether the index predicts life expectancy, and omega-3 metabolites that resolve inflammation.

Limits: A podcast conversation, not a study; the episode description gives no numeric index ranges.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Rhonda Patrick's Q&A answer on lipoprotein(a): she describes it as an LDL-like particle linked to coronary disease, heart attack, stroke, and aortic valve stenosis, says genetics largely set the level, that statins generally don't lower it well, and that PCSK9 inhibitors lower it but are expensive.

Limits: A 2022 members-only Q&A that predates the siRNA and outcome-trial results, paraphrased from the episode page.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Rhonda Patrick's Q&A episode. At 00:53:24 a listener asks about supplementing with hydroxymethylbutyrate (HMB) to preserve muscle with age; in the transcript she says she did not ask Stuart Phillips about it and that she does not know whether HMB adds anything on top of protein, omega-3, vitamin D, and creatine.

Limits: A spoken answer to one listener question with no studies cited, so it shows her uncertainty, not a review of the evidence.

Cited on:HMB

What it found: Interview with Dominic D'Agostino covering types of keto diets, exogenous ketones, exercise performance, brain health, neurodegeneration, cancer, and the carnivore diet.

Limits: A podcast conversation, not a trial.

Cited on:Keto

What it found: A members-only FoundMyFitness episode hosted by Rhonda Patrick. The public page says APOE is a lipid-transport protein, that APOE4 is the main genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's, and that lifestyle factors may temper that risk, with seven listed topics: exercise, diet, ketogenic diets, education, sleep, alcohol, and air pollution.

Limits: The audio is for premium members, so I read only the public summary and topic outline and cannot say what she concludes on any of them.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: FoundMyFitness episode in which Patrick says heat therapy, such as a sauna or a hot bath, may improve slow-wave sleep; the example protocols are 20 minutes in a 176°F (80°C) sauna or a 104.9°F (40.5°C) hot tub or bath for 20 to 30 minutes, 1 to 2 hours before bedtime.

Limits: The page names no studies for its sleep claim, and the numbers are the host's description of the literature, not a trial result.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga, Sleep

What it found: Rhonda Patrick's members-only Q&A episode. The timeline lists the question "What are your thoughts on supplemental tyrosine?" at 00:13:07, with six study links and no written answer.

Limits: The episode is members-only and the page has no show notes or transcript on tyrosine, so I confirmed the topic but not what she said.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: A clip page from Rhonda Patrick's Q&A #56 covering GIP and GLP-1, the semaglutide and tirzepatide weight-loss trials, muscle and lean-mass concerns, side effects, and the point that stopping treatment commonly leads to regain.

Limits: A clip-page summary dated May 9, 2024, not a peer-reviewed source, and it reviews trials rather than adding data.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Rhonda Patrick's members-only Q&A episode; its show notes list a listener question at 00:24:43, "Does pentadecanoic acid offer any health benefits?", with links to the Robinson 2024 trial, the TANGO trial, and the 2022 Venn-Watson cell study, but give no answer and the page has no transcript.

Limits: I could confirm only that she took the question; I could not read what she said, so nothing here is her view of C15:0.

Cited on:fatty15 (C15:0)

What it found: A talk by Rhonda Patrick at the CrossFit Health Summit; the notes list segments on VO2 max, zone 2, reversing heart aging, exercise snacks, breaking up sedentary time, lifting heavy, the protein RDA, and sauna.

Limits: Show notes with timestamps only, not a study or transcript, so I report topics rather than her positions.

Cited on:Training

What it found: A clip page from Rhonda Patrick's Q&A #57: she describes CoQ10 as a mitochondrial coenzyme, says ubiquinol is a little more bioavailable than ubiquinone, says statins inhibit CoQ10 production and that people using statins should be supplementing with either form, and on PQQ cites small studies of inflammation markers, oxidative markers, and cognition and says to take them with a grain of salt; the page adds that a trial in confirmed statin myopathy did not establish relief with CoQ10.

Limits: A short clip page without timestamps, dated September 7, 2026 on the page though it comes from Q&A #57; it is her commentary, and the PQQ research it points to is exploratory.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: A FoundMyFitness clip in which Patrick suggests aiming for about seven and a half to nine hours of actual sleep, not time in bed, plus morning light, a steady wake time, no eating within about three hours of bed, and caution about alcohol near bedtime.

Limits: A short clip summarized on a show-notes page, so her reasoning and any caveats beyond the page text are not captured.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Solo episode arguing that about a cup of blueberries a day may help blood vessel function, brain health, and blood sugar control through signaling compounds made from anthocyanins, and raising the possibility that blending blueberries with bananas reduces polyphenol availability.

Limits: A podcast summary of the research by the host, not a trial; I read only the episode description.

Cited on:Superfoods

What it found: A clip page from Rhonda Patrick's conversation on More Plates More Dates: sleep loss can temporarily reduce insulin sensitivity, working muscle clears glucose through pathways partly independent of insulin, and she describes a short vigorous workout after a bad night, with her own continuous glucose monitor readings as a personal observation, not a controlled experiment.

Limits: A clip page whose reference list looked mismatched in places, so I treat it as her framing and personal experience, not as a source for the studies it names.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: A talk by Rhonda Patrick, followed by audience questions, covering exercise, sauna, and cold exposure; in it she gives the sauna and cold doses she bases on studies and says what she uses herself (about 180°F for sauna, about 50°F for 2 minutes for cold).

Limits: I read an auto-generated transcript on a third-party mirror (rosetta.to), because the YouTube page itself would not load for me; the title and channel were confirmed through YouTube's oEmbed, the date comes from the mirror, and the transcript was cut off partway through the Q&A. Title, channel, and the January 22, 2026 date were confirmed on YouTube; the figures quoted come from an auto-generated transcript.

Cited on:Sauna, Cold plunge, Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Rhonda Patrick is interviewed by MedCram co-founder Kyle Allred; the show notes list segments on heat as an exercise mimetic, heat shock proteins and dementia, depression, BDNF, her own sauna protocol (duration, temperature, humidity, frequency), hydration, cold therapy, sauna safety, and who should avoid saunas.

Limits: I read the show notes on the publisher's Libsyn directory page, not a transcript, so the notes list the topics but I did not read her numbers from this episode.

Cited on:Sauna, Cold plunge

What it found: Clip from Rhonda Patrick's interview with Peter Attia, in which Attia says screening carries financial, procedural, and false-positive harms, that the Galleri blood test's sensitivity for breast cancer looks low at first glance while its specificity is very high, and that he uses it alongside imaging, not instead of it; the page notes the evidence supports detection performance but not a mortality benefit.

Limits: A January 2024 conversation that predates the 2026 trial results, and it describes one physician's personal screening practice, not a recommendation.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Rhonda Patrick interviews Ben Bikman (Brigham Young University) on insulin resistance; the notes say normal glucose can hide high insulin, that he favors measuring insulin and wider access to glucose monitors, and that poor sleep can raise cortisol and liver glucose output and reduce insulin sensitivity.

Limits: An interview whose detailed notes are partly behind a premium preview, so I report topics and the guest's views, not trial evidence, and the guest argues a specific view of insulin.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: A short clip from Rhonda Patrick's interview with Eran Elinav: he is cautious about proposing that every person wear a continuous glucose monitor but supports measuring personal food responses, and Patrick describes her own multi-year use and that some clinicians worry glucose monitors may steer people away from healthy foods like fruit.

Limits: A clip page, not a study; it gives no normal ranges or thresholds and does not discuss accuracy, cost, or who should avoid monitors.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Rhonda Patrick interviews Andy Galpin, PhD; the show notes list recovery topics including blood flow and muscle repair, sauna and heat, cold immersion timing and its effect on gains, heart rate variability, overtraining versus overreaching, and sleep for harder training.

Limits: Show notes only, not a study or transcript, so I report topics rather than her or his positions.

Cited on:Training

What it found: Rhonda Patrick interviews Martin Gibala, PhD (McMaster University); the show notes list high-intensity training versus Zone 2 for VO2 max, exercise snacks, a VO2 max protocol, weekly training minutes, contraindications, and sex differences.

Limits: Interview and show notes, not a study; I read topics from the host's episode page, not a transcript, so I report topics rather than her positions.

Cited on:Training

What it found: Rhonda Patrick with exercise science communicator Brady Holmer; the show notes list segments on VO2 max, zone 2, combining HIIT and zone 2, evidence-based HIIT protocols, heart stiffening, exercise snacks, resistance training principles, rest intervals, training to failure, and each host's own routine.

Limits: Show notes with timestamps only, not a study or transcript, so I report topics rather than her positions.

Cited on:Training

What it found: A Journal Club episode in which Rhonda Patrick and Brady Holmer review a Nature Communications study of over 70,000 adults on vigorous versus moderate activity; the notes list segments on the 1:2 intensity rule, whether zone 2 counts as vigorous, VO2 max decline, mitochondria, and the 80/20 rule.

Limits: Show notes with timestamps only; the study under discussion is not one I opened, so I make no claim about its numbers.

Cited on:Training, Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Rhonda Patrick interviews Jari Laukkanen, lead author of the Finnish sauna cohort papers, about sauna and cardiovascular and Alzheimer's risk; the show notes mention heart rate rising to 150 beats per minute and a chapter on adding cold-water immersion to the sauna.

Limits: I read only the show-note entry in the publisher's feed, not a transcript, so I cannot say what either speaker said about doses beyond the topics listed.

Cited on:Sauna, Cold plunge, Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Rhonda Patrick interviews Benjamin Levine, MD (UT Southwestern); the show notes cover how inactivity ages the heart, structured exercise that may reverse some of it, VO2 max and longevity, intensity and volume, strength versus endurance work, and recovery and overtraining.

Limits: Interview and show notes, not a study; the framing about reversing up to 20 years of heart aging is the episode's own, and I did not open a transcript.

Cited on:Training, Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Rhonda Patrick interviews Valter Longo (University of Southern California) about the fasting-mimicking diet, prolonged fasting, and refeeding. In the transcript Longo says the cancer work began in mice, where the effects were very strong, that people usually get a doctor's clearance first, and that for diabetics, anorexic people, and people with diseases who take drugs the doctor has to decide; Patrick says she would not do a multi-day fast without some supervision.

Limits: A 2016 interview read on the show's page (the last quarter of a long page was not read), so it records opinions and hypotheses, and Longo's own papers disclose his equity in L-Nutra, which supplies the fasting-mimicking diet.

Cited on:Fasting: my monthly 3-day water and broth fast

What it found: Rhonda Patrick interviews Stuart Phillips, PhD (McMaster University); the show notes list topics including whether the protein RDA is too low, protein timing, hypertrophy factors, anabolic resistance, which exercise types and how much to do, and recovery.

Limits: Interview and show notes, not a study; I opened the host's episode page (topics only), not a transcript, so I report topics rather than her positions.

Cited on:Training

What it found: A single-author review that proposes APOE4 carriers have impaired brain uptake of free DHA but not of DHA bound to a phospholipid (DHA-lysoPC), and that phospholipid-bound DHA could raise plasma DHA-lysoPC and lower Alzheimer's risk. It reports no participants or data.

Limits: A hypothesis paper, so it tests nothing in people, and I found no trial showing that the proposal lowers Alzheimer's risk.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Review by Rhonda Patrick and Teresa Johnson of sauna practices (sessions typically 45 to 100°C, or 113 to 212°F), the heat-stress response, and health benefits and concerns. It describes repeated sauna use as likely producing hormesis and cites large prospective cohorts linking sauna use to lower morbidity and mortality in a dose-dependent way.

Limits: A narrative review; I could read only the PubMed abstract (the full text was not accessible to me), and the cohort evidence it leans on is observational.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga, Sauna

What it found: The authors sequenced BHLHE41 (also called DEC2) in two cohorts, 200 people with acute and 217 with chronic partial sleep deprivation, and found a Y362H variant in one twin of a non-identical pair, who slept less, had less recovery sleep, and had fewer performance lapses during deprivation than the twin without it. The abstract notes an earlier DEC2 mutation in a family of short sleepers who needed just 6 hours a night.

Limits: The key finding is a single twin pair plus cell work, so it shows such variants exist and says nothing about how common they are.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Thirty-two collegiate and professional female beach volleyball athletes completed a 10-week randomized controlled trial: the creatine group (n = 17) took 5 g a day of creatine monohydrate gummies and the control group (n = 15) did not. The creatine group improved countermovement jump height (p < 0.001) and change-of-direction speed (p = 0.009), with no significant group-by-time interaction for lean body mass or skeletal muscle mass.

Limits: The control group took nothing (no placebo), it is 32 athletes of one sport, and the conflict-of-interest statement says Create donated the gummies.

Cited on:Creatine

What it found: Case series of 13 episodes of ketoacidosis or ketosis in nine people taking SGLT-2 inhibitors (seven with type 1 diabetes, two with type 2); blood glucose was not markedly high, so recognition was slow. The authors advise testing ketones in anyone on these drugs who is nauseated, vomiting, or unwell, and extreme caution in type 1 diabetes.

Limits: A small case series identified incidentally, so it cannot give how often this happens and does not test a keto diet itself.

Cited on:Keto, Fasting: my monthly 3-day water and broth fast, Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Multicenter cohort of 1,280 people with polysomnography-confirmed idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder followed a mean 4.6 years: 6.3% per year converted to an overt neurodegenerative syndrome, and 73.5% had converted by 12 years. An olfactory deficit predicted conversion (hazard ratio 2.62), as did abnormal quantitative motor testing (3.16), and the authors estimate 142 to 366 patients per arm for definitive neuroprotective trials.

Limits: People with sleep-study-confirmed REM sleep behavior disorder at 24 centers of an international research group, so it does not give the risk for everyone who has a poor sense of smell or occasionally acts out dreams.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Company page offering a whole body MRI scan in under an hour with no radiation and no contrast, advertising whole body MRI, blood biomarker testing, and personalized results reviews starting at $1,199, and listing three add-on scans as FDA-cleared; the page does not say whether the whole body scan itself is FDA-cleared.

Limits: A seller's own marketing page checked on the date shown; it lists no accuracy figures or limitations.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Meta-analysis of 8 randomized trials in healthy people (10 in the systematic review). Overall SMD 0.29 (95% CI 0.04 to 0.53); adults 66 to 76 years SMD 0.88 (95% CI 0.22 to 1.55, I2 83%); adults 11 to 31 years SMD 0.03 (95% CI -0.14 to 0.20). Dose (about 2.2 to 20 g/day) and duration (5 days to 24 weeks) did not change the result.

Limits: Few trials with high heterogeneity, and the older-adult effect rests on small studies.

Cited on:Creatine

What it found: Says the company has "spent the last 30 years researching, innovating, and developing" its product line; the page gives no founding year, founders, third-party testing, or certification.

Limits: Pure Encapsulations' about, product, and professional-site pages all returned errors (HTTP 403 or 404), so product facts and quality claims could not be read from the maker.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: Label record entered November 22, 2022 and not marked off market: 2 capsules once a day (30 servings in 60 capsules) provide 100 mg of MicroActive CoQ10-cyclodextrin complex, described as 24 hour sustained release, and 20 mg of BioPQQ pyrroloquinoline quinone disodium salt, taken in the morning with a meal; the label claims mitochondrial, cognitive, and cardiovascular support and lists certified gluten-free (GFCO), non-GMO, and hypoallergenic, with a warning to consult a professional if pregnant, lactating, or taking medication.

Limits: A database copy of the 2022 label, not the maker's current page, so I did not confirm the current label; it does not say whether the CoQ10 is ubiquinone or ubiquinol.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: Meta-analysis of 12 randomized trials with 575 patients (294 on CoQ10, 281 on placebo): CoQ10 reduced muscle pain (weighted mean difference -1.60, 95% CI -1.75 to -1.44), weakness (-2.28), cramps (-1.78), and tiredness (-1.75), with no change in plasma creatine kinase (0.09, P = 0.23).

Limits: Reached the opposite conclusion from the 2015 and 2020 meta-analyses using different trial sets and pooling, and the abstract does not report heterogeneity.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: ACE-sponsored University of Wisconsin-La Crosse study of 20 regular Bikram practitioners (7 men, 13 women, aged 28 to 67) who swallowed a core-temperature sensor before a 90-minute studio class. Average highest core temperature was 103.2°F (39.6°C) for men and 102.0°F (38.9°C) for women, 7 of 20 exceeded 103°F (39.4°C), one man reached 104.1°F (40.1°C), and none showed signs of heat intolerance; the lead researcher suggested classes of 60 minutes or less, a cooler room, and more attention to hydration.

Limits: A sponsor's summary of a field study of 20 experienced practitioners first published in the Gundersen Medical Journal, which I did not open, and the date shows only the month.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Patient page (last reviewed March 11, 2024): a DEXA scan uses a very small dose of radiation, less than one-tenth that of a standard chest x-ray, and the central test usually takes 10 to 30 minutes; a T-score of -1 and above is normal, -1.1 to -2.4 is low bone mass, and -2.5 and below is osteoporosis; calcium supplements are avoided for 24 hours before.

Limits: A patient-education page about bone density scans, not about whole-body body-composition protocols, and it gives no millisievert figure.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Dose table (last reviewed April 15, 2025): bone densitometry 0.001 mSv (about 3 hours of natural background), cardiac CT for calcium scoring 1.7 mSv (6 months), coronary CT angiography 8.7 mSv (3 years), chest x-ray 0.1 mSv (10 days); average US background is about 3 mSv a year.

Limits: Typical values for an average-sized adult; actual doses vary by scanner and protocol.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Patient page (last reviewed July 15, 2026): the scan takes less than 20 minutes with no contrast injection, may be recommended for people with risk factors but no symptoms, with guidelines suggesting men 40 and older and women 45 and older at borderline or intermediate risk; scores run 0 (no evidence of CAD) through over 400 (extensive); not all insurance plans cover it.

Limits: A patient-education page that gives no cost figures.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial of 45 young adult vegetarians taking 5 g/day of creatine monohydrate for 6 weeks. Backward digit span (working memory) and Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (intelligence) both improved versus placebo, p < 0.0001.

Limits: Vegetarians have lower baseline creatine intake, so the result may not apply to meat-eaters, and the abstract reports no means or effect sizes.

Cited on:Creatine

What it found: Meta-analysis of randomized trials using creatine kinase (CK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) as indirect markers of muscle damage. Across 10 CK studies (324 participants) HMB lowered CK (weighted mean difference -60.71 U/L, 95% CI -78.12 to -43.29) and across 8 LDH studies (229 participants) it lowered LDH (-15.42 U/L, 95% CI -22.2 to -8.6), and a subgroup analysis found the effect significant in studies over 6 weeks.

Limits: CK and LDH are blood markers of damage, not measures of performance or soreness, and the trials were small.

Cited on:HMB

What it found: Observational study of 5,800 statin-naive adults aged 40 to 75 without known coronary disease followed 9.5 years. About one-third of those meeting statin criteria had a calcium score of 0, and their cardiovascular mortality was 0.2% versus 2.4% for those with any calcium (about 12-fold lower).

Limits: Observational and showing risk, not that skipping a statin is safe, and the abstract does not name the clinic or say how many people had scores in each range.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial of 30 adults aged 60 or older (20 men, 10 women) who did two 6-week periods of creatine monohydrate plus HMB or placebo, separated by a 3-week washout, with four supervised exercise sessions a week. Creatine plus HMB improved several functional strength and endurance tests, largely independent of muscle mass changes.

Limits: Thirty people, 6 weeks, body composition by bioelectrical impedance, the abstract gives no doses or effect sizes, and it cannot separate creatine's effect from HMB's.

Cited on:HMB

What it found: The updated ISSN position stand lists 12 points. It says chronic use of either form is safe for at least one year, that 38 mg/kg body weight a day with exercise training may improve body composition, that HMB may improve strength and power in untrained people, that results in trained athletes are mixed and improve with studies longer than 6 weeks, and that HMB may help sedentary and older adults improve strength, function, and muscle quality.

Limits: A society position stand that reviews the literature rather than testing HMB itself; its disclosures say the lead author works for MTI Biotech and, with two co-authors, is named as an inventor on HMB-related patents, and that the ISSN has at times received grants from companies that sell, market, or manufacture HMB.

Cited on:HMB

What it found: Registry record, not yet recruiting as of its October 5, 2026 update: a planned placebo-controlled trial of 93 adults aged 55 and older, randomized 1:1:1 to C15:0 at 200 mg/day, 300 mg/day, or placebo for about 12 weeks, with change in red cell distribution width as the primary outcome and a start date of January 2027.

Limits: A plan, not a result; the sponsor is an industry company (ReCellience15, Inc, with Nutrasource as collaborator), and the registry says nothing about whether the trial will find anything.

Cited on:fatty15 (C15:0)

What it found: Company press release, not yet peer-reviewed: Redwire says its upgraded BioFabrication Facility printed a human knee meniscus on the ISS in July 2023 with the Uniformed Services University's 4D Bio3 center, cultured it for 14 days in its ADSEP processor, and that the SpaceX Crew-6 mission brought it back to Earth.

Limits: A company press release with no tissue data, so the 'first' claim and the quality of the print are Redwire's.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: Phase 1-2 study of zimislecel (VX-880), stem cell-derived islets infused into the portal vein with glucocorticoid-free immunosuppression. Of 14 participants with at least 12 months of follow-up, all had detectable C-peptide; all 12 who got the full dose were free of severe hypoglycemia with HbA1c below 7%, and 10 of 12 (83%) were insulin independent at day 365; two participants died (cryptococcal meningitis, and severe dementia with agitation).

Limits: A small, interim, non-prespecified analysis funded by Vertex in which participants needed immunosuppressive drugs.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Systematic review of randomized trials in healthy people: in well-rested people modafinil improved attention, in sleep-deprived people it maintained wakefulness, memory, and executive function better than placebo, repeated doses did not prevent decline over a longer period of sleep deprivation, and modafinil may induce overconfidence in one's own performance. The authors say expectations about these drugs exceed the effects shown in trials.

Limits: The abstract gives no study counts, participant numbers, or doses, and it covers modafinil, not armodafinil.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil)

What it found: Randomized trial in which 30 healthy, normal-weight young adults (15 per group) ate under 20 g of carbohydrate a day or their usual diet for 3 weeks. LDL-C rose from 2.2 to 3.1 mmol/L on the diet while controls stayed at 2.5 (+44% versus controls, individual changes 5% to 107%), and ApoB rose significantly.

Limits: Thirty completers (9 people dropped out) over 3 weeks, so it shows the direction of change, not what happens over years.

Cited on:Keto, Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Retrospective review of clinic records comparing four consecutive days of 500 mg IV NAD+ or 500 mg IV NR with 30-day follow-up. IV NAD+ caused moderate to severe GI symptoms, faster heart rate, and chest pressure, lengthening infusions to an average of 97 minutes versus 37 for NR; symptoms resolved when infusions stopped and routine safety labs did not change significantly.

Limits: Retrospective, no control group, 30 days, participant numbers not in the abstract, and all authors were employed by the company that sells the infusions.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Randomized crossover study of 41 adults with type 2 diabetes (mean age 60) comparing 2-week periods of advice to walk 30 minutes a day with advice to walk 10 minutes after each main meal, with 5-minute continuous glucose monitoring. The 3-hour post-meal glucose area was lower with after-meal walking (ratio of geometric means 0.88, 95% CI 0.78 to 0.99), and lower still after the evening meal (0.78, 0.67 to 0.91).

Limits: Forty-one people with type 2 diabetes and two-week periods, so it shows after-meal glucose in diabetes, not prevention in people without it.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Solo episode. Show notes explain NAD+ roles, say NAD+ falls with age, note that animal benefits of NR and NMN come mostly from high doses in mice, that human data are small, that oral NAD+ has poor bioavailability, and that one animal model suggested NMN may promote cancer in a senescent-cell setting.

Limits: A 2020 overview with no new data; the date shown on the page was used, though podcast directories list this as an earlier numbered episode.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Interview with Charles Brenner, who discloses advisory roles with Niagen and NADmed. Notes say clinical NR doses are generally around 1 g/day, NMN is converted back to NR before entering cells, oral NR has far more clinical data than IV NAD, and Patrick says she takes 1,000 mg daily of Tru Niagen.

Limits: The guest sells and advises on NR, so his views carry a conflict of interest; the notes were a partial read of a long page, and a directory listed the date as February 9, 2026.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Rhonda Patrick interviews Darren Candow, PhD, on creatine for strength, brain, and aging. Show notes cover dosing by body weight (about 0.1 to 0.14 g/kg/day), loading versus daily dosing, brain effects in stressed brains, and the kidney and hair myths; the guest describes taking about 10 g/day himself.

Limits: An interview whose online show notes were a truncated preview, so views on kidneys and hair are not available, and the higher doses discussed are the guest's opinion.

Cited on:Creatine

What it found: High-dimensional immune profiling of one living recipient of a gene-edited pig kidney. Early T-cell-mediated rejection occurred within 1 week and reversed with intensified immunosuppression; afterward adaptive immunity stayed suppressed but innate immune activation persisted, no antibody-mediated rejection was detected, and pig cell-free DNA rose during rejection and fell with treatment.

Limits: One patient, a different recipient of the same eGenesis kidney from the Lancet bridge-to-transplant case, so the immune signatures and the cell-free DNA biomarker idea are hypotheses to test, not established rules.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: An international expert group convened by the American Diabetes Association proposed "remission" as the term for glucose returning to normal range, with the usual criterion an HbA1c below 6.5% (48 mmol/mol) measured at least 3 months after stopping glucose-lowering drugs, and suggested how to monitor people in remission.

Limits: A definitions consensus, not a trial, and the abstract says the long-term risks and benefits of remission are unclear.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: CANTOS randomized 10,061 patients with a prior heart attack and hsCRP of at least 2 mg/L to canakinumab (50, 150, or 300 mg every 3 months) or placebo for a median 3.7 years. Canakinumab did not lower LDL; the 150 mg dose cut the primary endpoint (HR 0.85, 95% CI 0.74 to 0.98) and the 300 mg dose gave HR 0.86 (0.75 to 0.99), while the 50 mg dose was not significant (0.93).

Limits: Tested a drug in people who had already had a heart attack, with more fatal infections on canakinumab and no drop in all-cause mortality; it does not show that lowering CRP by other means helps.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Case report of the first recipient of eGenesis's gene-edited pig kidney (EGEN-2784) at Massachusetts General Hospital, transplanted January 25, 2025. The patient stayed off dialysis for 271 days; early T-cell rejection on day 14 resolved, then the graft failed after immunosuppression was reduced during an infection, and 82 days after removal the patient received a human kidney that worked immediately, with no sensitization over 231 days. No porcine pathogen transmission was detected.

Limits: One patient under an expanded-access protocol, funded by Massachusetts General Hospital and eGenesis, so it shows feasibility as a bridge and not routine durability.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: AHA science advisory recommending one to two seafood meals a week to reduce the risk of heart failure, coronary heart disease, ischemic stroke, and sudden cardiac death, with the largest benefit when seafood replaces less healthy foods.

Limits: An expert advisory that relies largely on observational studies, and its abstract does not name specific fish or give supplement advice.

Cited on:Superfoods, Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Series of meta-analyses of 47 studies in healthy non-sleep-deprived adults. For modafinil (14 studies, 64 effect sizes) there was a small overall effect (SMD = 0.12, p = .01) and an improvement in memory updating (SMD = 0.28, p = .03), methylphenidate (24 studies) had an overall SMD of 0.21, and D-amphetamine (10 studies) showed no effects. The authors say the belief that these drugs are effective cognitive enhancers is not supported by the evidence so far.

Limits: Acute single-dose lab studies in healthy adults and not armodafinil, and the abstract does not give participant numbers, so it cannot speak to long-term or real-world use.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil)

What it found: In 21 active men who strength trained twice a week for 12 weeks, 10 minutes of cold water immersion after each session produced smaller strength and muscle gains than active recovery (for example, type II fiber area rose 17% with active recovery and not with cold). A second study of 9 men found cold immersion blunted the satellite cell and p70S6 kinase response after a single leg workout.

Limits: Small trials in young active men using a 10-minute immersion after every session, so it does not tell us what occasional cold exposure far from a workout does.

Cited on:Training, Sauna, Cold plunge

What it found: Placebo-controlled single-blind study of 41 women on a long-term oral contraceptive containing ethinyl estradiol 0.035 mg, given modafinil 200 mg for 7 days then 400 mg for 21 days. Modafinil caused a marked drop in blood levels of the test drug triazolam and a much smaller drop in ethinyl estradiol, and the authors concluded that modafinil induces the CYP3A4/5 enzymes in humans.

Limits: Tested modafinil, not armodafinil, in a small single-blind study, and the abstract gives no percentages for the change in ethinyl estradiol.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil)

What it found: Double-blind randomized trial of 200 mg/day of C15:0 versus placebo for 12 weeks in 30 young adults with overweight or obesity (20 on C15:0, 10 on placebo). Blood C15:0 rose 1.88 µg/mL more on C15:0 (P = 0.003) with no significant adverse events; in the half who reached a level above 5 µg/mL, ALT fell more (-29 U/L, P = 0.001) and hemoglobin rose more (0.60 g/dL, P = 0.010) than in those who did not.

Limits: Thirty people for 12 weeks; the main result is only that the supplement raised blood C15:0, the liver-enzyme and hemoglobin findings come from an exploratory comparison by the level people reached, and Seraphina Therapeutics, which sells fatty15, supported the trial and supplied the C15:0 and matching placebo (full text, Funding section), alongside an NIH grant.

Cited on:fatty15 (C15:0), The companies behind what I take

What it found: Show notes for Rhonda Patrick's seventh appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience: at 00:04:20 and 00:04:35 the notes say fish roe and krill oil are rich in phospholipid DHA and that it enters the brain more readily than triglyceride DHA, and at 00:06:00 that the phospholipid form may be beneficial for people with APOE-related Alzheimer's disease.

Limits: I read the show notes, not the audio, and they describe a proposed mechanism rather than a trial result.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Phase 1 trial in resected pancreatic cancer: 16 patients received the personalized vaccine autogene cevumeran with atezolizumab and 15 received mFOLFIRINOX. Vaccine-induced neoantigen-specific T cells appeared in 8 of 16 patients, and at 18 months median follow-up non-responders had a median recurrence-free survival of 13.4 months while the responders' median had not been reached (P = 0.003).

Limits: A small, single-arm phase 1 trial where the responder comparison is not randomized, so it cannot show the vaccine itself prevents recurrence.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: NASA Ames review concluding that naps improve later performance and alertness in operational settings, that planned in-flight naps helped crews during descent and landing on a long-haul study, and that sleep inertia (grogginess just after waking) should be weighed before adding naps to schedules.

Limits: A short conference-style review from operational fatigue research that reports no specific numbers in its abstract.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Phase 2 trial of 281 adults with type 2 diabetes at 42 US centers given weekly retatrutide, placebo, or dulaglutide 1.5 mg. At 24 weeks HbA1c fell 0.43% to 2.02% on retatrutide versus 0.01% on placebo and 1.41% on dulaglutide, weight fell 3.19% to 16.94% at 36 weeks, gastrointestinal events were mild to moderate in 35% (67 of 190), and no severe hypoglycemia or deaths were reported.

Limits: A phase 2 dose-finding trial of 24 to 36 weeks, funded by the drug's developer, so it cannot show long-term safety or hard outcomes.

Cited on:Retatrutide, Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: American Heart Association scientific statement arguing that low cardiorespiratory fitness may predict mortality more strongly than smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes, that adding fitness to traditional risk factors improves risk classification, and that clinicians should assess it as a vital sign.

Limits: An expert review, not a new study; the abstract calls it a focused review of key advances and gives no numbers.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Twelve-week double-blind trial at 37 centers in the United States and Canada of 395 adults aged 18 to 65 with residual sleepiness despite nasal CPAP, given armodafinil 150 or 250 mg once daily or placebo. At the end, 72% of armodafinil patients versus 37% of placebo patients were rated improved on the Clinical Global Impression of Change.

Limits: People kept using CPAP for the whole trial, so it shows armodafinil treats leftover sleepiness and does not treat the airway obstruction, and the abstract gives no discontinuation rates.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil)

What it found: Meta-analysis of nine studies (14 comparisons, 394 subjects, mean age 23) of HMB during resistance training. In untrained men HMB gave small benefits to lower-body strength (9.9%) and average strength (6.6%), with negligible upper-body gains (2.1%); strength effects were trivial in trained men, and fat and fat-free mass effects were trivial.

Limits: Young men only, short studies (about 5 weeks), and the data are older than most current trials.

Cited on:HMB

What it found: FOURIER randomized 27,564 patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and LDL-C of 70 mg/dL or higher on statins to the PCSK9 antibody evolocumab or placebo for a median 2.2 years. LDL-C fell 59% more with evolocumab (to a median 30 mg/dL), and the primary endpoint was 9.8% versus 11.3% (HR 0.85, 95% CI 0.79 to 0.92).

Limits: A median 2.2 years is short for a lifelong exposure, the patients already had cardiovascular disease, and Amgen funded the trial.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Meta-analysis of 25 randomized trials with 2,412 participants with diabetes. Diets restricting carbohydrate to under 26% of energy lowered HbA1c more than higher-carbohydrate diets at 3 months (weighted mean difference -0.47%, 95% CI -0.71 to -0.23) and 6 months (-0.36%, -0.62 to -0.09), with no significant difference at 12 or 24 months; moderate restriction (26 to 45% of energy) showed no difference.

Limits: Evidence quality is limited, and the benefit faded by one year, so the diet's edge is mostly early.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: PREDIMED subgroup analysis of 3,541 Spanish adults aged 55 to 80 without diabetes at high cardiovascular risk, assigned a Mediterranean diet with extra-virgin olive oil, one with nuts, or a low-fat control diet, with no calorie restriction or activity program. Over a median 4.1 years, new diabetes was 16.0, 18.7, and 23.6 per 1,000 person-years; the hazard ratio was 0.60 (95% CI 0.43 to 0.85) for olive oil and 0.82 (0.61 to 1.10, not significant) for nuts.

Limits: A subgroup analysis in older, high-risk adults, with higher withdrawals in the control group; the main PREDIMED report was later withdrawn and republished, and I did not confirm whether this analysis was redone.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Cohort of 195 children started on the ketogenic diet for intractable epilepsy: 13 (6.7%) developed kidney stones, and oral potassium citrate was associated with fewer stones (3.2% versus 10.0%, P=0.049).

Limits: Children on a medical keto diet for epilepsy at one center, observational, so adult rates on a self-directed diet are unknown.

Cited on:Keto

What it found: Cross-sectional comparison, using indirect calorimetry and blood lactate during exercise, of professional endurance athletes, moderately active people, and people with metabolic syndrome. Fat oxidation was higher and blood lactate lower in the athletes (P<0.01), and lactate correlated negatively with fat oxidation (r = -0.76 across all groups).

Limits: A snapshot comparing different kinds of people (group sizes are not given in the abstract), so it cannot show that zone 2 training caused the differences, and the abstract does not test any zone 2 prescription.

Cited on:Training

What it found: Meta-analysis of six randomized trials with 193 trained and competitive athletes. HMB had trivial, non-significant effect sizes for every outcome: bench press 0.00, leg press 0.09, body mass -0.01, fat-free mass 0.16, and fat mass -0.20, and the authors concluded it had no effect on strength or body composition in these athletes.

Limits: Only six small trials, and the abstract does not report confidence intervals.

Cited on:HMB

What it found: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 2a trial of 98 adults with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease given once-weekly retatrutide 1, 4, 8, or 12 mg or placebo for 48 weeks. At 24 weeks relative liver fat fell 42.9%, 57.0%, 81.4%, and 82.4% versus a 0.3% rise on placebo (all P < 0.001), and normal liver fat (under 5%) was reached by 27%, 52%, 79%, and 86% versus 0% on placebo.

Limits: Ninety-eight people and 24-week liver fat measures, with no biopsy outcomes or liver-disease events, and the study registration (NCT04881760) is the same as the phase 2 obesity trial, with Lilly employees among the authors.

Cited on:Retatrutide

What it found: The original Theracurmin paper: after oral dosing, the colloidal-dispersion form's AUC was more than 40-fold higher than curcumin powder in rats and 27-fold higher in human volunteers given 30 mg, and it reduced blood acetaldehyde after drinking.

Limits: The abstract gives no sample size, it measures blood levels rather than any health outcome, and an author is listed with Theravalues Corporation, which makes Theracurmin.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP, The companies behind what I take

What it found: NHS-Galleri randomized people aged 50 to 77 to a multi-cancer blood test (71,122) or usual care (71,128) for up to three annual visits. The primary end point, stage III or IV cancer across 12 prespecified cancers, was not reduced (incidence rate ratio 1.03, 95% CI 0.92 to 1.14, P = 0.63); stage IV cancer had an incidence rate ratio of 0.86 (95% CI 0.74 to 1.00).

Limits: The trial missed its primary end point, the stage IV result sits at the edge of statistical significance, its end points are cancer stage rather than cancer deaths, and GRAIL funded it.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Phase I/II trial at Kyoto University Hospital in seven people aged 50 to 69 given iPS-cell-derived dopaminergic progenitors, with six evaluated for efficacy over 24 months. There were no serious adverse events (73 mild to moderate events); four of the six improved on the OFF motor score, the average change across all six was 9.5 points (20.4%), and putamen 18F-DOPA uptake rose 44.7%.

Limits: Seven people with no control group, so improvements could reflect placebo or surgical effects, and dyskinesia increased while medication doses were kept unchanged.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: STAMPEDE: 150 people with type 2 diabetes and a BMI of 27 to 43 randomized to intensive medical therapy alone or with gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy; 134 were analyzed at 5 years. The HbA1c goal of 6.0% or less was met by 5% on medical therapy, 29% after gastric bypass, and 23% after sleeve gastrectomy, with weight down 5%, 23%, and 19%.

Limits: A small single-center trial funded in part by Ethicon Endo-Surgery, with intention-to-treat comparisons that did not all reach significance.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: SPARX phase 2 randomized 128 people within 5 years of a Parkinson's diagnosis and not on dopaminergic medication (43 high-intensity, 45 moderate-intensity, 40 wait-list control) to treadmill exercise for 6 months. The motor score changed by 0.3 points with high-intensity exercise (about 80.2% of maximum heart rate, 2.8 days a week) versus 3.2 points of worsening in controls (P = .03), and only the high-intensity group cleared the futility threshold.

Limits: A phase 2 safety-and-futility trial that asked whether a larger trial was worth running, in people already diagnosed and not yet on medication, so it says nothing about preventing the disease.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Meta-analysis of 21 trials comparing low-load (60% of 1RM or less) with high-load (over 60% of 1RM) training, all sets taken to momentary failure, at least 6 weeks. One-repetition-max strength gains were greater with heavy loads, while hypertrophy was similar and isometric strength showed no significant difference.

Limits: The abstract gives direction only (no effect sizes), and the hypertrophy parity depends on low-load sets being taken to or near failure.

Cited on:Training

What it found: Meta-analysis of ten trials comparing weekly training frequencies. Higher frequency produced a hypertrophy effect size of 0.49 versus 0.30 for lower frequency (P = 0.002).

Limits: Only ten trials, and analyses matched for training frequency per muscle group could not give reliable estimates because the sample was too small, so total weekly volume may explain part of the gap.

Cited on:Training

What it found: Systematic review and meta-regression of 15 studies (34 treatment groups). Each additional weekly set was associated with about 0.37% more muscle gain (effect size 0.023, P = 0.002), and higher versus lower volume within studies differed by about 3.9% (P = 0.03); grouping sets as under 5, 5 to 9, or 10 or more per muscle showed only a trend (P = 0.074).

Limits: Meta-regression across heterogeneous trials, and it measures average muscle size change, not the point where extra sets stop paying off for any one person.

Cited on:Training

What it found: Randomized trial of 21 resistance-trained men for 8 weeks of 3 full-body workouts a week (3 sets of 8 to 12 reps across 7 exercises), with 1-minute versus 3-minute rests between sets. The 3-minute group gained more squat and bench press 1RM and more quadriceps thickness; triceps thickness favored long rest without reaching significance (P = 0.06).

Limits: Twenty-one trained young men for 8 weeks, so it shows the direction of a rest-time effect, not a precise number for everyone.

Cited on:Training

What it found: Randomized noninferiority trial of hearts from circulatory-death donors (perfused outside the body) versus standard brain-death donor hearts, with 180 patients transplanted (90 in each group). Risk-adjusted 6-month survival was 94% in the circulatory-death group and 90% in the brain-death group, and noninferiority was met.

Limits: Six-month survival in one trial funded by TransMedics, which makes the perfusion device, so it does not show longer-term results.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: ODYSSEY OUTCOMES randomized 18,924 patients who had an acute coronary syndrome 1 to 12 months earlier to the PCSK9 antibody alirocumab or placebo every 2 weeks for a median 2.8 years. The primary endpoint occurred in 9.5% versus 11.1% (HR 0.85, 95% CI 0.78 to 0.93) and all-cause death in 3.5% versus 4.1% (HR 0.85, 95% CI 0.73 to 0.98); injection-site reactions were 3.8% versus 2.1%.

Limits: Only people with a recent acute coronary syndrome and persistently high LDL-C, apolipoprotein B, or non-HDL-C on statins were enrolled, so it does not speak to primary prevention.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Crossover trial in six male distance runners: 3 weeks of sauna bathing right after training (about 89.9°C for 31 minutes, 12.7 sessions on average) versus 3 weeks of control training. Time to exhaustion at 5 km pace rose 32% (90% confidence limits 21% to 43%) and plasma volume rose 7.1%, with performance changes tracking plasma volume (r = 0.96).

Limits: Six runners over three weeks, and the abstract I read does not describe randomization or blinding, so treat it as a small pilot.

Cited on:Sauna

What it found: SCOT-HEART randomized 4,146 patients with stable chest pain to standard care plus coronary CT angiography or standard care alone, with a median follow-up of 4.8 years. Death from coronary heart disease or nonfatal heart attack at 5 years was 2.3% versus 3.9% (HR 0.59, 95% CI 0.41 to 0.84), with no difference in invasive angiography (HR 1.00) or revascularization (HR 1.07).

Limits: Patients had stable chest pain, so the result does not apply to screening people with no symptoms.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: The maker's FAQ says fatty15 is sold on its own website and on Amazon, that the FA15 ingredient is tested for 98% or higher purity and made under cGMP, that the recommended starting dose is one capsule a day (some customers take two, and it cites safety studies up to 250 mg), that customers may use it in place of fish oil but keep any omega-3 a doctor prescribed, and that FDA does not approve dietary supplements.

Limits: Company statements; the page is undated, and its GRAS and testing claims are the seller's own, not checked against a regulator or certifier.

Cited on:fatty15 (C15:0), The companies behind what I take

What it found: The maker's own ingredients post: each Original Capsule has 100 mg of C15:0 and nothing else (no fillers or oil), the company recommends starting with 1 or 2 capsules a day, adult gummies have 50 mg per gummy at 2 to 4 gummies a day, kids gummies have 25 mg per gummy, each batch is tested to confirm 98% or higher purity, and the page names Stephanie Venn-Watson and Eric Venn-Watson as co-founders.

Limits: Company marketing copy, so the purity and third-party testing statements are the seller's own and I did not see a certificate; the page does not name who manufactures the C15:0.

Cited on:fatty15 (C15:0)

What it found: A fatty15 product page that links the company's lines: Original Capsules, Gummies for Adults, Gummies for Kids, a practitioner-only Advanced Formula sold through approved healthcare practitioners and Fullscript, and a book; it carries the standard statement that the claims have not been evaluated by the FDA.

Limits: The supplement facts on this page are an image I could not read, and the page is undated.

Cited on:fatty15 (C15:0)

What it found: COSMOS randomized 21,442 older US adults to 500 mg a day of cocoa flavanols (including 80 mg epicatechin) or placebo; over a median 3.6 years total cardiovascular events had HR 0.90 (95% CI 0.78 to 1.02, not significant), while cardiovascular death had HR 0.73 (0.54 to 0.98) as a secondary outcome.

Limits: The primary outcome missed significance, the death result is secondary, follow-up was short, and the trial used a flavanol extract rather than chocolate.

Cited on:Superfoods

What it found: Extended follow-up of the phase 1 pancreatic cancer vaccine trial at a median of 3.2 years: 8 responders with vaccine-induced T cells and 8 non-responders, with median recurrence-free survival not reached in responders versus 13.4 months in non-responders (P = 0.007). Eighty-six percent of vaccine-induced T-cell clones per patient persisted at substantial levels about 3 years after vaccination, and two responders recurred.

Limits: Sixteen patients in one phase 1 trial and a responder-versus-non-responder comparison that was not randomized.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: Prospective multicenter study of 153 nonpregnant, nonobese people aged 7 to 80 who wore a blinded Dexcom G6 for up to 10 days. Mean glucose was 98 to 99 mg/dL in most age groups (104 over age 60), median time between 70 and 140 mg/dL was 96%, median time above 140 was 2.1%, and median time below 70 was 1.1%.

Limits: A short wear period in a small, selected group of healthy people with one sensor model, so it gives reference ranges and not a diagnostic cutoff.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: Review proposing that cold water immersion can trigger heart rhythm problems when the cold shock response (sympathetic racing heart) and the diving response (parasympathetic slowing) fire at the same time. The authors suggest this 'autonomic conflict' may explain some deaths attributed to drowning or hypothermia, especially in people with predisposing conditions.

Limits: A hypothesis-driven review with no incidence numbers, so it explains a plausible mechanism rather than how often it happens.

Cited on:Cold plunge

What it found: News report that Towana Looney, 53, of Alabama had her gene-edited pig kidney removed at NYU Langone Health on April 4 after 130 days because her body began to reject it; surgeon Robert Montgomery cited a prior infection, slightly lowered anti-rejection drugs, and a reactivating immune system, and she returned to dialysis.

Limits: A news report; I found no peer-reviewed paper on this case.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: Trade report that Pure Encapsulations, founded in the early 1990s, was acquired by Atrium Innovations in 2004 and is now owned by Nestlé Health Science, which bought Atrium in 2017, and that it was previously reserved for health care practitioners and select ecommerce channels.

Limits: A trade article; it gives no headquarters.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ, The companies behind what I take

What it found: The authors identified a mutation in the β1-adrenergic receptor gene (ADRB1) in people who need less sleep than most. The mutation reduces protein stability in cells, mice carrying it sleep for shorter periods, and the ADRB1-positive neurons in the dorsal pons are active in REM sleep and wakefulness.

Limits: A rare mutation in one family studied with cells and mice, so it does not explain most short sleepers.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Joint AHA and AMA policy statement calling self-measured home blood pressure a validated out-of-office method useful for white-coat, masked, resistant, and morning hypertension, preferring validated oscillometric devices with a standardized protocol, and reporting that it lowers blood pressure and improves control, especially with co-interventions.

Limits: A policy statement whose abstract gives no thresholds or device criteria, and a correction to it was published (PMID 32718246).

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Randomized, double-blind trial of 21.5 mg/day of PQQ disodium salt or placebo for 12 weeks in 64 healthy Japanese adults aged 40 to under 80 (58 completed): several cognitive scores improved significantly versus placebo, including memory, attention, and reaction time, with no adverse events.

Limits: Fifty-eight completers, no p-values in the abstract, and authors list affiliations with Ryusendo Co., Ltd. and Dr. Herbs LLC.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: PET imaging in 20 healthy adults compared brain beta-amyloid after a night of rested sleep and after one night without sleep. Amyloid burden rose significantly in the right hippocampus and thalamus after sleep deprivation, and higher baseline amyloid in several regions went with fewer reported hours of sleep per night.

Limits: Twenty healthy adults and one night of lost sleep, so it shows a short-term amyloid change on PET and not that poor sleep causes Alzheimer's.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Cross-sectional analysis of 1,123 PPMI participants: the alpha-synuclein seed amplification assay had 87.7% sensitivity for Parkinson's disease (95% CI 84.9 to 90.5) and 96.3% specificity versus healthy controls. It was positive in 44 of 51 prodromal participants with REM sleep behavior disorder or loss of smell, and in 25 of 310 non-manifesting LRRK2 or GBA variant carriers.

Limits: A research cohort tested at one time point, so it shows the assay can sort groups but not what a positive result means for any one person without symptoms.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Randomized trial in 8 community facilities: 251 adults aged 39 to 70 with type 2 diabetes did aerobic training, resistance training, both, or nothing, 3 times a week for 22 weeks. Versus control, HbA1c fell 0.51 percentage points with aerobic (95% CI -0.87 to -0.14) and 0.38 with resistance training, and combined training lowered it a further 0.46 below aerobic alone and 0.59 below resistance alone.

Limits: Not blinded, the combined group exercised for more total time, and results may not hold for people who do not stick with the program.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: TRAILBLAZER-ALZ 2 randomized 1,736 people with early symptomatic Alzheimer's disease (860 donanemab, 876 placebo) for up to 76 weeks. In the low/medium tau group the iADRS declined 6.02 versus 9.27 (difference 3.25, 95% CI 1.88 to 4.62, P<.001); ARIA with edema or effusion occurred in 24.0% on donanemab versus 2.1% on placebo, and there were 3 treatment-related deaths versus 1.

Limits: A trial of 76 weeks in people who already have symptoms, funded by the maker, showing slowed decline rather than a halt, with a higher rate of brain swelling or bleeding on the drug.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Eighteen-month, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 40 non-demented adults aged 51 to 84 given 90 mg Theracurmin twice daily (21 curcumin, 19 placebo). Curcumin improved long-term retrieval memory (between-group effect size 0.68, p = 0.05) and Trail Making A attention (0.67, p = 0.04), with PET changes in a subset of 30.

Limits: Forty people, a specific bioavailable curcumin product, and the PET findings are associations.

Cited on:Magic Mind, Theracurmin HP, The companies behind what I take

What it found: Narrative review arguing that every atherogenic particle (VLDL, LDL, chylomicron remnant, Lp(a)) carries one apoB molecule, so plasma apoB counts the particles; cholesterol enters the artery wall only inside apoB particles, and the number entering depends mainly on how many are in the blood. The authors conclude that apoB is a better marker of atherogenic risk than LDL-C or non-HDL-C.

Limits: A narrative review by authors who advocate apoB testing, not a systematic review or a trial.

Cited on:Keto, Cardiovascular disease, explained, Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: Eleven young men spent 4 hours in bed a night for 6 nights and then 12 hours a night for 6 nights. During sleep debt, glucose tolerance was lower (p < 0.02), evening cortisol was higher (p = 0.0001), and sympathetic nervous system activity was higher (p < 0.02).

Limits: Eleven young men in a fixed-order lab study at 4 hours in bed, a more extreme restriction than 4.5 to 6 hours, over only 6 nights, with no randomization.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: SPRINT MIND randomized 9,361 adults aged 50 or older with hypertension (mean age 67.9) to a systolic target under 120 or under 140 mm Hg. Probable dementia was 7.2 versus 8.6 per 1,000 person-years (HR 0.83, 95% CI 0.67 to 1.04, not significant), while mild cognitive impairment fell (HR 0.81, 95% CI 0.69 to 0.95) and the combined outcome fell (HR 0.85, 95% CI 0.74 to 0.97).

Limits: The primary dementia result was not statistically significant, the trial stopped early for cardiovascular benefit with fewer dementia cases than expected, and people with diabetes or prior stroke were excluded.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: SPRINT randomized 9,361 adults without diabetes, with systolic pressure of 130 mm Hg or higher and increased cardiovascular risk, to a systolic target under 120 or under 140 mm Hg. Over a median 3.26 years (stopped early), the primary composite outcome was 1.65% versus 2.19% per year (HR 0.75, 95% CI 0.64 to 0.89) and all-cause death HR was 0.73 (0.60 to 0.90).

Limits: Excluded people with diabetes and prior stroke, was stopped early, and the intensive arm had more hypotension, syncope, electrolyte abnormalities, and acute kidney injury.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: UK Biobank cohort of 25,241 adults who did no leisure exercise, followed an average 6.9 years with 852 deaths. At the median of 3 vigorous bouts of 1 to 2 minutes a day, risk was 38 to 40% lower for all-cause and cancer mortality and 48 to 49% lower for cardiovascular mortality than with none; at 4.4 minutes a day the reductions were 26 to 30% and 32 to 34%.

Limits: Observational, device-measured, and in non-exercisers only, so reverse causation (healthier people move more vigorously) cannot be ruled out.

Cited on:Training

What it found: Cohort analysis of 3,196 CARDIA participants, replicated in 3,889 ARIC participants: higher plasma C15:0 went with lower blood pressure and lower 10-year hypertension risk (HR 0.86 per SD) but not with incident cardiovascular disease or echocardiographic measures, and two-sample Mendelian randomization found no evidence of a causal effect on blood pressure, resting heart rate, or hypertension.

Limits: Observational, measuring blood C15:0 from diet and metabolism rather than a supplement, and the authors conclude the evidence does not support a causal cardiovascular benefit.

Cited on:fatty15 (C15:0)

What it found: Randomized placebo-controlled trial in 8 healthy young men taking 1,000 mg/day of NR for one week before an hour of cycling. NR did not raise muscle NAD+ or change substrate use, mitochondrial respiration, or the signaling markers measured, although it raised NAD+ precursors and breakdown products in muscle.

Limits: Eight young men and one week of supplementation, so it says little about long-term or older populations.

Cited on:NAD+

What it found: Company announcement that Sumitomo Pharma and RACTHERA obtained conditional and time-limited approval in Japan on March 6, 2026 for AMCHEPRY (raguneprocel), an allogeneic iPS cell-derived dopaminergic neural progenitor cell product, to improve motor symptoms in people with Parkinson's disease who respond inadequately to existing drugs, with a post-marketing study and surveillance required to obtain full approval.

Limits: A company press release, not peer-reviewed and not the regulator's own document, and it rests on the small Kyoto trial of seven people.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Double-blind three-way crossover in 9 healthy adults comparing Theracurmin (six capsules, 182.4 mg curcumin) with BCM-95 (one capsule, 279.3 mg) and Meriva (two capsules, 152.5 mg): Theracurmin's peak was 10.7 times higher than BCM-95 and 5.6 times higher than Meriva, and its AUC 11.0 and 4.6 times higher.

Limits: Nine people, products with different curcumin amounts so it is not dose-matched, blood levels rather than any health outcome, and the authors describe the Theracurmin capsules as their own.

Cited on:Theracurmin HP

What it found: Mice fed a ketogenic or standard diet for 30 days before and through pregnancy; embryo imaging showed altered organ growth in the ketogenic group (for example, relatively smaller brain and larger heart at day 13.5, then smaller heart and thymus at day 17.5).

Limits: A mouse study, so it raises a question about human pregnancy without answering it.

Cited on:Keto

What it found: Bloomberg report (September 1, 2026) that Nestlé plans to sell its mainstream vitamins and supplements business, including Nature's Bounty, Osteo Bi-Flex, and Puritan's Pride, to the private equity firm Yellow Wood Partners for $1 billion, and that Nestlé said it remains well positioned in premium vitamins, a sector that includes brands such as Solgar and Pure Encapsulations.

Limits: A wire report; it does not use the word "retained" and does not mention Integrative Therapeutics.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: Comparison of 7 winter-swimming men (about 2.6 swims a week, who also used sauna) with 8 controls. Swimmers had lower core temperature and larger cold-induced increases in thermogenesis and supraclavicular skin temperature, while brown fat glucose uptake in the cold rose about the same as in controls; their group average was 11 minutes a week in cold water and 57 minutes a week in sauna heat (Table 1).

Limits: Seven swimmers versus eight controls, men only, and the authors say causality cannot be concluded; the 11 minutes a week is what this group did, not a dose the paper recommends.

Cited on:Sauna, Cold plunge

What it found: Open-label phase I trial of bemdaneprocel, human embryonic stem cell-derived dopamine neuron progenitors grafted into the putamen. Twelve patients were enrolled (5 at a low dose of 0.9 million cells, 7 at a high dose of 2.7 million cells), and all received one year of immunosuppression. No adverse events related to the cell product were reported, PET uptake rose at 18 months, there were no graft-induced dyskinesias, and the OFF motor score improved by an average of 23 points in the high-dose cohort.

Limits: Twelve people, no control group or placebo, and a one-year course of immunosuppression, so the motor gains could include placebo and surgery effects and are not proof of benefit.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: Double-blind, placebo-controlled study in adults aged 20 to 65 given 20 mg/day of PQQ for 12 weeks: composite and verbal memory improved after 12 weeks, and younger adults also improved on cognitive flexibility and processing speed after 8 weeks.

Limits: The abstract gives no sample size, p-values, or effect sizes, and the authors list affiliations with Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company and RIKEN, with no funding or competing-interest statement in the record.

Cited on:CoQ10 with PQQ

What it found: A double-blind randomized crossover pilot of nine people with bilateral subthalamic DBS, one month on conventional and one month on adaptive stimulation. There were no statistically significant differences: ON time favored conventional DBS while troublesome dyskinesia and UPDRS scores favored adaptive DBS, and a Bayesian analysis gave a 29.4% probability of a meaningful conventional advantage for ON time.

Limits: Nine patients and one month per arm, published online ahead of print in September 2026 without volume or pages in the record.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: A case-control study nested in the Agricultural Health Study with 110 Parkinson's cases and 358 controls: rotenone use had an odds ratio of 2.5 (95% CI 1.3 to 4.7) and paraquat 2.5 (95% CI 1.4 to 4.7), and pesticides that inhibit mitochondrial complex I (OR 1.7) or cause oxidative stress (OR 2.0) were also associated.

Limits: A small case-control study of licensed pesticide applicators (mostly farmers) and their spouses, so it shows an association with farm use and says nothing about lower exposures such as diet or living near a farm.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: A six-gene-edited pig liver was transplanted as an auxiliary graft into one brain-dead recipient and monitored for 10 days. Bile production began about 2 hours after reperfusion and reached 66.5 mL by day 10, porcine albumin rose, and histology showed no signs of rejection.

Limits: One brain-dead recipient followed for 10 days, so it shows early function and not survival of a living patient.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: COLCOT randomized 4,745 patients within 30 days after a heart attack to colchicine 0.5 mg once daily or placebo for a median 22.6 months. The primary endpoint was 5.5% versus 7.1% (HR 0.77, 95% CI 0.61 to 0.96); serious pneumonia was 0.9% versus 0.4%.

Limits: Only people who had just had a heart attack were enrolled, and the benefit was driven by stroke and urgent angina hospitalization, not by cardiovascular death or heart attack itself.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained

What it found: Review of sleep inertia, the temporary drop in alertness after waking. Waking from slow-wave sleep causes the most inertia and waking from stage 1 or 2 the least, with REM in between; durations range from about 1 minute to 4 hours across studies but rarely exceed 30 minutes without major sleep deprivation.

Limits: A 2000 review that does not test alarms timed to 90-minute cycles, so it supports the idea that the sleep stage at waking matters but not any particular alarm schedule.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: Randomized trial of 80 people with chronic low back pain comparing a 1-week residential yoga program with physical exercise. Yoga lowered Oswestry disability scores more (p = 0.01) and improved spinal flexion (p = 0.008) and extension (p = 0.002) more than exercise.

Limits: A 1-week residential program with short follow-up, which is not how most people practice.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: PubMed record of an Expression of Concern from the editors of The Lancet, published in June 2026 and attached to the February 2025 Lancet trial of exenatide in Parkinson's disease (vijiaratnam2025).

Limits: The PubMed record contains no notice text, so I do not know the reasons for the concern and cannot say whether the trial's conclusions will change.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: News report on Auxilium Biotechnologies' announcement. It says the samples are small and not transplant-ready organs, that a printed kidney for patients is still years away with blood-vessel formation unsolved, and that the near-term use is research such as organoids for drug testing.

Limits: Reports the company's own announcement, with the caveats coming from the article, not a trial.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: Gives the company's founding as July 2007, its headquarters as 1F Kioicho Bldg., Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, the launch of Theracurmin raw material in Asia (August 2010) and North America (March 2011), and its becoming a subsidiary of Handok Inc., a South Korean pharmaceutical company, in December 2016.

Limits: Company self-description; it names no founders, and says nothing about Integrative Therapeutics.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: Presents Theracurmin as a curcumin formulation made by the company and states that its AUC0-6h was 27-fold higher than curcumin powder in a 14-subject study using 30 mg; it also mentions an 18-month double-blind trial without naming authors or a journal.

Limits: The page gives no authors, journals, or funders for the studies it describes.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: Twenty participants (10 men and 10 women) did a multiple-task battery and a simple-task battery 1 hour after 150 mg/kg of L-tyrosine or placebo. On the multiple-task battery tyrosine improved working memory accuracy; it did not change arithmetic, visual, or auditory performance there, and it changed nothing on the simple-task battery.

Limits: Twenty people, a single dose, and a benefit limited to one measure under multitasking demands.

Cited on:L-tyrosine

What it found: Review of the threats and uses of cold water immersion, from drowning, cardiac arrest, and hypothermia to treating hyperthermia and managing inflammation. The authors rate the evidence behind each claim and conclude that some uses have a credible rationale while others remain anecdotal.

Limits: A narrative review whose abstract gives no numbers, so it frames risk and benefit but does not quantify either.

Cited on:Cold plunge

What it found: Exploratory randomized trial in healthy young adults: 10 did 24 supervised 90-minute Bikram classes over 8 weeks and 11 were controls. The yoga group gained deadlift strength, lower back and hamstring flexibility, and shoulder flexibility and had a modest drop in body fat, while handgrip strength, cardiovascular measures, and maximal aerobic fitness did not change.

Limits: Twenty-one people over 8 weeks, described by the authors as exploratory.

Cited on:Hot yoga and hatha yoga

What it found: Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study: 522 middle-aged overweight adults with impaired glucose tolerance were randomized to individualized counseling (weight loss, less total and saturated fat, more fiber, more activity) or a control group, mean follow-up 3.2 years. Weight fell 4.2 kg versus 0.8 kg at year 1, four-year cumulative diabetes incidence was 11% versus 23%, and risk fell 58% (P<0.001).

Limits: Overweight Finnish adults with impaired glucose tolerance followed about 3 years, and the result depends on people actually making the changes.

Cited on:Blood sugar and diabetes

What it found: EPA page last updated October 22, 2026: EPA issued a final TCE rule in December 2024; on October 14, 2026 it proposed moving the compliance date for several uses from December 18, 2026 to December 31, 2027, and says the TCE ban stays in place with interim workplace protections continuing. The page does not mention Parkinson's disease.

Limits: A regulatory status page that shows what the rule requires and when, not whether TCE causes Parkinson's disease, and the proposed dates are not final.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: The FDA's Chicago District Office issued a Warning Letter on May 7, 2002 to the president of Optimum Nutrition, Inc. of Aurora, Illinois, calling stevia an unapproved food additive in conventional food and citing unauthorized health claims for a soy protein product and claims in a whey protein supplement's labeling.

Limits: A 2002 action against a company of the same name; I did not confirm that it is the same legal entity as the brand's current owner.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: The FDA's May 11, 2022 update says it determined that Glanbia was incorrectly identified in a May 4, 2022 warning letter: Glanbia does not sell Uplift Max or Shred Her Max, and the seller's website wrongly said it belonged to Optimum Nutrition; the letter was retracted and the FDA said it would keep investigating.

Limits: A retraction notice; it shows no violation by Glanbia or Optimum Nutrition.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: FDA announcement that Lantidra, a deceased-donor islet cell therapy infused into the liver portal vein, was approved for adults with type 1 diabetes and repeated severe hypoglycemia despite intensive management. In two single-arm studies of 30 participants, 21 did not need insulin for a year or more, and most had a serious reaction to the procedure or the immunosuppressive drugs.

Limits: Two non-randomized studies; the islets need immunosuppressive drugs to survive, and some serious reactions forced those drugs to stop, which ended islet function and insulin independence.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes, Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: On July 6, 2023 FDA converted Leqembi (lecanemab-irmb) from accelerated to traditional approval for Alzheimer's disease, to be started in mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia, based on the 1,795-patient CLARITY AD trial. The label carries a boxed warning for ARIA, notes higher risk in ApoE e4 homozygotes with testing recommended before treatment, and cautions about anticoagulants.

Limits: The announcement is from July 2023, so later label changes are not captured here.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: FDA page (content current as of 07/02/2024) on Kisunla (donanemab-azbt), an IV infusion every four weeks for Alzheimer's disease, started in mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia. In 1,736 randomized patients the iADRS difference was 2.92 and CDR-SB -0.70 at Week 76, and the page carries a boxed warning for ARIA and says ApoE e4 status testing should be performed before treatment.

Limits: A July 2024 FDA page, so later label updates are not captured, and its date comes from the page's own 'content current as of' line.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: FDA announcement approving Symvess, an acellular lab-grown blood vessel, as a conduit for adults with extremity arterial injury when urgent revascularization is needed and a patient's own vein graft is not an option. In a single-arm study of 54 patients, 67% kept primary patency at day 30 and 15% had an amputation of the treated limb by month 36; warnings include graft rupture and thrombosis.

Limits: A single-arm study of 54 patients, and the product is a blood vessel for trauma, not a solid organ.

Cited on:Research frontier: organ replacement

What it found: FDA PMA record: supplement S478 to Medtronic's P960009 was received April 17, 2024 and decided February 20, 2025, approving a new optional programming feature called adaptive deep brain stimulation (aDBS) as adjunctive therapy for levodopa-responsive Parkinson's disease.

Limits: A database entry for a device approval; it gives no trial results.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: CDER warning letter to Lilly's CEO dated 09/09/2025 about a direct-to-consumer online video of an interview featuring Lilly representatives, finding it false or misleading so that it misbrands Zepbound, and citing failure to submit it under Form FDA-2253.

Limits: Concerns Zepbound promotion, not retatrutide.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: CDER warning letter to Lilly's CEO dated 09/09/2025 about a direct-to-consumer online video of an interview featuring Lilly representatives, finding it false or misleading so that it misbrands Zepbound, a drug with a boxed warning for thyroid C-cell tumors, and citing failure to submit it under Form FDA-2253.

Limits: Concerns Zepbound promotion, not retatrutide.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: CDER warning letter to Lilly's CEO dated 09/09/2025 about a direct-to-consumer video, "An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame, and the Weight Loss Revolution," finding it false or misleading about Zepbound and Mounjaro, saying it failed to present their serious risks truthfully and minimized them, and citing failure to submit it under Form FDA-2253.

Limits: Concerns tirzepatide promotion, not retatrutide.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: FDA cleared the Lumipulse G pTau217/beta-Amyloid 1-42 Plasma Ratio test (Fujirebio) for adults aged 55 and older with signs and symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. In a study of 499 plasma samples, 91.7% of positive results had amyloid confirmed by PET or CSF and 97.3% of negative results were confirmed negative, with fewer than 20% indeterminate.

Limits: The FDA says the test is not intended as a screening or stand-alone diagnostic test, and it was studied in people who already had cognitive impairment.

Cited on:Getting ahead of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: On August 26, 2026 the FDA approved daraxonrasib for adults with metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma who have had at least one prior systemic therapy or are not candidates for multiagent therapy, at 300 mg by mouth once daily on the label. In RASolute 302 (500 patients), median overall survival was 13.2 versus 6.7 months (hazard ratio 0.40, 95% CI 0.30 to 0.53), progression-free survival was 7.2 versus 3.6 months, and objective response was 30% versus 11%.

Limits: A regulatory summary of one open-label trial; it lists warnings (skin and soft tissue toxicity, mouth sores, diarrhea, lung inflammation) and says nothing about cure.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: On October 19, 2026 the FDA granted accelerated approval to dostarlimab (Jemperli) for adults with stage II or III locally advanced rectal cancer that is MSI-H or dMMR, based on the single-arm AZUR-1 trial of 154 treated patients, at 500 mg every three weeks for up to nine cycles. Sustained clinical complete response at 12 months was 47% by independent central review (116 evaluable patients) and 68% by investigator assessment (144 patients), with median follow-up of 26.3 months.

Limits: An accelerated approval based on one single-arm trial, with no survival or cure data yet; the independent review rate (47%) trails the investigator rate (68%), and the page notes 38 more patients in complete response by independent review with under 12 months of follow-up.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: FDA notice that a device advisory panel would meet on September 23, 2026 to discuss the Galleri test under a premarket approval application, described as a prescription-only, sequencing-based test of cell-free DNA methylation for early detection of multiple cancer types in adults aged 50 or older, to be followed by diagnostic workup.

Limits: A meeting announcement written before the meeting, so it records the proposed use but not the panel's vote or the FDA's decision.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: FDA announcement that Lipfendra (enlicitide), a once-daily oral tablet and the first oral PCSK9 inhibitor, approved for Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, is an adjunct to diet and exercise to lower LDL-C in adults with hypercholesterolemia, including heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia; in two trials of 3,207 adults on maximally tolerated statins, LDL-C fell an average of 56% and 59% versus placebo at week 24, the trials' primary endpoint.

Limits: The page mentions no cardiovascular outcomes data; it says nothing about whether the drug prevents heart attacks or strokes.

Cited on:Cardiovascular disease, explained, Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: The FDA's recalls page, whose newest entry was dated 11/03/2026, listed no entry naming Optimum Nutrition, Glanbia, Pure Encapsulations, Magic Mind, Seraphina, Integrative Therapeutics, Eli Lilly, Teva, or Apotex, and says not all recalls have press releases or are posted on it.

Limits: Only the recent listing was readable; my fetcher could not run the page's search by company name, so older recalls are unchecked.

Cited on:The companies behind what I take

What it found: FDA announcement dated June 15, 2026 that Tzield (teplizumab) was approved on June 12, 2026, under accelerated approval, to delay the decline of insulin production in pediatric patients aged 8 through 17 recently diagnosed with stage 3 type 1 diabetes, based on a statistically significant effect on C-peptide. It says Tzield was previously approved to delay stage 3 in people with stage 2 disease, and a required postapproval study is ongoing to verify clinical benefit.

Limits: The page names no trial and gives no patient numbers, and accelerated approval on C-peptide is not proof of clinical benefit.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: FDA page (content current as of October 1, 2026) saying retatrutide and cagrilintide cannot be used in compounding under federal law and have not been found safe and effective for any condition, that FDA has warned companies over unapproved products falsely labeled for research purposes, and that FDA urges consumers not to buy such products, which are of unknown quality.

Limits: The page shows no separate posted or updated date, so the date is the content-current date it states, and it is a regulatory statement, not a study.

Cited on:Retatrutide

What it found: The FDA's Drugs@FDA record for new drug application 021875 shows the original Nuvigil approval on 06/15/2007 and labeling supplements dated 10/21/2010, 06/28/2013, 04/16/2015, and 02/07/2017.

Limits: An approval and label index only; its label list ends at the 02/07/2017 supplement, so the label wording quoted on the page comes from DailyMed.

Cited on:Nuvigil (armodafinil), The companies behind what I take

What it found: USPSTF recommendation: for men aged 55 to 69, PSA screening may prevent about 1.3 prostate cancer deaths per 1,000 men screened over about 13 years, and the decision should be individual (grade C); for men 70 and older it recommends against PSA-based screening (grade D).

Limits: The 2018 statement was the current USPSTF recommendation in the record I opened; I did not check whether an update is in progress, and it covers screening in men without symptoms, not testing for a reason.

Cited on:Lab tests worth knowing

What it found: The Task Force recommends annual low-dose CT screening for adults aged 50 to 80 with a 20 pack-year smoking history who smoke now or quit within the past 15 years (grade B), replacing the 2013 statement that set 55 to 80 and 30 pack-years.

Limits: A 2021 statement that I did not check against any newer update, and it covers only people with a heavy smoking history.

Cited on:Research frontier: cancer

What it found: USPSTF finds the evidence insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening adults 50 and older for hearing loss (I statement); nearly 16% of US adults report difficulty hearing.

Limits: An 'I' statement means the evidence is insufficient, not that testing is harmful, and it covers screening without symptoms.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: USPSTF reaffirmation: with moderate certainty, screening asymptomatic adults for COPD has no net benefit, and it recommends against it (grade D); about 6% of US adults had been diagnosed with COPD in 2020.

Limits: It concerns screening people without symptoms and does not cover diagnostic spirometry for someone with breathing symptoms.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: USPSTF finds the evidence insufficient to assess screening for obstructive sleep apnea in the general adult population (I statement); in 2007 to 2010 data, 14% of men and 5% of women aged 30 to 70 had at least mild OSA (AHI 5 or higher) with daytime sleepiness, and 13% of men and 6% of women had moderate to severe OSA (AHI 15 or higher).

Limits: It concerns screening people without recognized symptoms; it does not address testing someone with sleepiness or snoring.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: USPSTF recommends screening for osteoporosis in women 65 and older and in postmenopausal women younger than 65 at increased risk (both grade B), and finds the evidence insufficient to assess screening in men (I statement).

Limits: A recommendation about screening to prevent fractures; it says nothing about DXA lean or fat mass.

Cited on:Body, fitness, and imaging tests

What it found: Phase 1, open-label, single-ascending-dose trial of VERVE-102, an adenine base editor aimed at PCSK9, given as one infusion to 35 adults with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia or premature coronary artery disease. PCSK9 fell 51% at 0.3 mg/kg to 88% at 1.0 mg/kg, LDL-C fell 9% to 62% (an absolute drop of 78 mg/dL at the top dose), no dose-limiting toxicity occurred, and 15 participants had at least 1 year of follow-up.

Limits: Thirty-five people in a safety-first trial funded by Verve Therapeutics, with no heart-attack outcomes and follow-up of about a year for only some of them.

Cited on:Research frontier: heart disease and diabetes

What it found: Double-blind placebo-controlled crossover study of 20 male college rugby players: 7 days of 25 g/day then 14 days of 5 g/day. Testosterone did not change; DHT rose 56 percent after loading and stayed 40 percent above baseline after maintenance (P < 0.001), and the DHT:T ratio rose 36 percent then 22 percent.

Limits: Twenty young men, hair loss was not measured, and the result has not been replicated.

Cited on:Creatine

What it found: Healthy adults (n = 48, aged 21 to 38) were randomized to 4, 6, or 8 hours in bed for 14 nights, or to 3 nights without sleep. Restriction to 6 hours or less produced cognitive deficits that grew each day and matched up to 2 nights of total sleep deprivation, while subjective sleepiness ratings did not track the deficits.

Limits: A laboratory study of 48 healthy young adults over 14 days, so it shows what happens during restriction and not what happens over years.

Cited on:Sleep

What it found: CLARITY AD randomized 1,795 people with early Alzheimer's disease (898 lecanemab 10 mg/kg every 2 weeks, 897 placebo) for 18 months. The CDR-SB score worsened by 1.21 on lecanemab and 1.66 on placebo (difference -0.45, 95% CI -0.67 to -0.23, P<0.001), amyloid on PET fell by 59.1 centiloids more, infusion reactions occurred in 26.4%, and ARIA with edema or effusions in 12.6%.

Limits: An 18-month trial of an intravenous drug that slows decline modestly in people already showing symptoms, so it is not a cure and does not show what happens beyond 18 months.

Cited on:Research frontier: Alzheimer's and Parkinson's

What it found: PET/CT study of 24 healthy men (10 lean, 14 overweight or obese) at 22°C and in mild cold at 16°C. Brown fat activity appeared in 23 of 24 men in the cold but not at the warmer temperature, and was lower in overweight or obese men than in lean men (P = 0.007).

Limits: A snapshot of 24 men that shows brown fat exists and responds to cold, not that cold exposure changes body weight or health.

Cited on:Cold plunge

What it found: Names Stephanie Venn-Watson as CEO and co-founder and Eric Venn-Watson as co-founder and COO, and reports a $5.5 million Series A led by Domain Associates.

Limits: Trade press; the page shows two dates (May 18, 2020 and July 3, 2022) and does not explain them, and its $5.5 million figure differs from the $6.2 million in another outlet.