From goal to routine
Every plan follows the same path: goal → personal context → reasoned stack → routine → optional products → updates. You can enter at any point: someone already taking supplements can add their routine and understand it without starting from the quiz.
We only ask questions that can change the result. Picking a goal is a navigation choice, not a diagnosis, and a quiz never replaces a clinical assessment.
How we label options
Within a goal, each option carries one of five labels. They describe how to read it for that goal, not a clinical effect score. The order inside a group is a reading order, and ties are allowed.
- Core optionThe references to weigh first for this goal. Not a personal prescription.
- ConditionalRelevant when a specific question or condition applies to you.
- Limited evidenceA narrow signal. Worth knowing, but not equivalent to the references.
- Other outcomeHelps a different outcome, like manageability or appearance, not regrowth.
- Not for your contextNo basis to add it by default. May become relevant with a documented deficiency.
“Not for your context” is not a verdict of uselessness. It means there is no basis to add the option by default. It may become relevant, for example, when a deficiency is documented.
Ingredients vs combinations
Evidence for a single ingredient and evidence for a blend are different data. The efficacy and safety of a combination can't be inferred automatically from its parts, a point the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements makes about multi-ingredient products. So every plan keeps three things apart:
- evidence for each ingredient and outcome;
- direct evidence on the combination, if it exists, with matching form, amount and population;
- what was checked for duplications, interactions and precautions: checked, data missing or out of scope.
“No issues found” never means “safe”. Choosing several goals doesn't stack several plans either: we reconcile one routine, removing repeated ingredients and flagging incompatible instructions.
What a routine contains
Each component of a plan has its own fields, filled in only when they're supported and applicable:
- ingredient and formulation;
- amount per intake, and the daily total when relevant;
- frequency, method, and any link to meals or other intakes;
- duration and when to review;
- precautions;
- where the instruction comes from: the evidence, your product's label, or your own preference.
We don't invent an ideal time of day to make a card look complete. If “in the morning” is a convenience you chose, the plan says so.
Products come second
Before you choose a product, a plan speaks in active amounts and formulations. “Two capsules” only makes sense once a specific label has been checked. Adding a product translates the plan into units. It never changes the scientific judgement to favour that product.
If a page ever links to a product we may earn from, the disclosure sits right next to the link. If we haven't verified a product's quality, the field says so.
Updates & translations
Conclusions are versioned. When one changes, we know which guides, plans and answers depend on it, and we explain what moved. Amounts are structured data, not free text, so translations keep negations, conditions, units and uncertainty intact.
What we won't do
- Diagnose a condition, or promise a result.
- Pad a plan with supplements so it looks complete.
- Credit a single ingredient with the result of a whole formula.
- Treat an improvement you notice after starting a plan as proof it caused it.
- Let a commission decide what goes into a plan.