What reading the evidence did to how I think
Personal essays on method, uncertainty and the decisions behind a formulation — written in the first person, and signed.
These are opinions. They are not evidence assessments, and they are kept in a different part of this site for that reason.
Our evidence assessments are written to a published standard, from full texts, with every grade traceable to the trials behind it and every conflict declared. What follows here is one person reasoning in public about what that work has taught him. It draws on reading beyond the peer-reviewed literature, it argues rather than reports, and where it is wrong it is wrong in the ordinary way that opinions are.
Nothing in this section is a statement about what any product does.
21 essays · written by Nikos Drosakis
Essay 31 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
How to Read a Supplement Study
5 min read · 2 methodological sources
Essay 32 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
Why Animal Studies Are Not Human Evidence
3 min read
Essay 33 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
Statistical Significance Is Not Clinical Significance
3 min read · 2 methodological sources
Essay 34 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
What Does a 20-Person Study Actually Tell Us?
2 min read · 1 methodological source
Essay 35 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
Placebo-Controlled Does Not Mean Good Science
2 min read · 3 methodological sources
Essay 36 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
Why Supplement Meta-Analyses Disagree
3 min read · 2 methodological sources
Essay 37 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
Industry-Funded Research: When Should We Be Concerned?
3 min read · 3 methodological sources
Essay 38 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
What Is Publication Bias?
2 min read · 3 methodological sources
Essay 39 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
Primary vs Secondary Outcomes
2 min read · 2 methodological sources
Essay 40 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
Relative Risk vs Absolute Risk
2 min read
Essay 41 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
What Does “Clinically Proven” Actually Mean?
2 min read · 1 methodological source
Essay 42 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
What Does EFSA Actually Approve?
3 min read · 3 methodological sources
Essay 43 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
Why Mechanism Is Not Proof
2 min read
Essay 44 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
Biomarkers vs Outcomes
2 min read
Essay 45 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
Observational Study vs RCT
2 min read · 2 methodological sources
Essay 46 · METHODOLOGY & TRUST
Correlation vs Causation in Nutrition
3 min read
Essay 47 · Methodology & Trust
How We Decide an Ingredient Has Failed
5 min read
Essay 48 · Methodology & Trust
How MindHeaven Changes Its Mind
5 min read
Essay 49 · Methodology & Trust
The Studies We Wish Had Been Negative
5 min read
Essay 50 · Methodology & Trust
The Claims Supplement Marketing Should Stop Making
6 min read
Essay 51 · Methodology & Trust
Healthy Enough to Qualify
9 min read