Editorial policy

NootropicsWork pages are signed by the NootropicsWork editorial team. Every factual claim cites a source, every grade follows a published rubric, and no page goes live until it has passed our editorial checklist and been approved for publication. Commercial relationships never change a grade or a verdict.

Pages carry the byline "NootropicsWork editorial team" rather than a person's name. The site owner is accountable for the site, these standards and corrections.

We have no medical reviewer and claim no medical credentials. Everything here is educational guidance, not medical advice; see the disclaimer.

Our conflict of interest is commercial: we earn affiliate commission on sales of our partner, Qualia (How we make money). Partner products get the same rubric, and their claims the same claims tracker. The owner's own experience appears only on Qualia review pages, in clearly marked sections based on the owner's notes. Every other compound page is a research summary only.

Every fact needs one primary source, or two independent authoritative summaries; two outlets repeating one press release count as one source. We cite only what we have read, at least as an abstract, and claim no more than it says.

Table: Source tiers and what each can support

Absence statements carry their search date. Every cited PubMed ID and DOI is checked against PubMed and Crossref before publication and each month after. The monthly check also uses the Retraction Watch database, which Crossref acquired and made public in 2023 [6]. A retracted paper is removed as support, and every page citing it goes back into review.

Evidence is graded per compound and per outcome. The rubric is on How we grade evidence, and every grade appears in the evidence matrix. Risk of bias is rated with a simplified checklist covering randomization, blinding, dropouts, preregistration, selective reporting and funding or conflicts of interest. The GRADE evidence-rating system was described in 2008 by its developers as increasingly adopted by organizations worldwide [1]; our grades are simpler and are not GRADE ratings.

Extra rules keep grades conservative:

• The top grade needs at least one trial or meta-analysis confirmed as independent, as defined below, and no null meta-analysis in the population the grade is about.
• If our rationale says a lower grade could be argued, the lower grade is the default, unless a meta-analysis in the relevant population supports the higher grade and a preregistered, independent trial is positive on its main outcome.
• Evidence only from clinical or older populations, or pooled with them without a healthy-adult estimate, is capped at Limited.
• "No benefit shown" needs a meta-analysis in the relevant population, or two independent, adequately sized trials null on their main outcome. Small single-dose crossover studies from one group give "Limited, mixed", never shown as a benefit.
• An uncontrolled case series counts as Preliminary. Combination-only evidence, such as L-theanine with caffeine, is graded with that context attached.
• A newer meta-analysis on a graded outcome holds up approval until it is added or set aside with a written reason.

Modifiers (industry-funded, dose gap, short-term only, single research group, subjective outcome only) show with the grade, and every grade keeps a public history.

The safety flag is a separate badge, not a grade. A page gets it when it cites one of these:

• Regulator action on that compound: a ban, restriction, scheduling, contraindication or warning from FDA, UK regulators, Health Canada, the TGA, EFSA or an EU member state. A caution covering a whole product category does not count.
• A documented interaction: a human study showing an interaction, or a primary or authoritative interaction reference naming medicines with a narrow safe range, such as blood thinners. Cell studies or one case report alone do not count.
• A harm signal in human data: an adverse finding in a randomized trial or meta-analysis, a large adjusted cohort study linking it to a serious outcome, a LiverTox likelihood score between A and C, or an IARC or US National Toxicology Program hazard classification.
• A named harm in a higher-risk group: a systematic review or regulator names a specific harm in pregnancy, children or a named condition.
• Quality problems: published market testing found mislabeled or contaminated products (wild plant samples do not count).

The badge names its criterion, and it never replaces the safety section. No flag does not mean safe.

When a company funded or ran a cited study, the page names it in the sentence reporting the finding, or the next one, at the study's first mention in each section. We do this because a Cochrane review of 75 papers found that industry-sponsored drug and device studies more often had favorable efficacy results than other studies (risk ratio 1.27, 95% CI 1.17 to 1.37, from 25 papers; moderate-quality evidence by the review's rating) [2]. Its authors wrote that their analyses suggest an industry bias that standard risk-of-bias assessments cannot explain [2]. The review covered drugs and devices, not supplements.

When funding is not stated, we make no claim, and the reference reads "Funding: not stated in the PubMed or Crossref record; full text not read." We call a study independent only when the paper states no industry funding and no relevant conflict of interest. Studies by our partner carry a fixed line: "We earn a commission on Qualia sales; this study was funded and run by Qualia Life Sciences."

Compound pages give a legal status row for the US, UK, Canada, Australia and the EU, each with its source and a check date. A status we cannot confirm still gets its row, reading "Not verified as of" its check date, plus what we checked. We never infer a status from silence: no "banned" or "not approved" unless a regulator says so. Under DSHEA, FDA does not have the authority to approve dietary supplements before they are marketed [3]; US rows without a compound-specific FDA statement say so. Rows are re-checked every 90 days.

We report findings with population, design, dose and duration. FDA's rules separate statements about maintaining healthy structure or function from disease claims [4]; our pages report study findings, not product benefits. Disease names appear only to describe who was studied, a safety caution or a regulator statement.

Doses appear only as doses used in studies, never as advice. Safety sections summarize what sources report; when a source names a medicine, we name it and ask readers who take it to talk to their doctor or pharmacist.

The FTC's Endorsement Guides say a reviewer paid through affiliate links should disclose that compensation clearly and conspicuously [5]. Our disclosure sits above the first affiliate link, and product guides include the best-evidenced option regardless of commission.

Before a page goes live:

1. Each citation is matched to its record, and each number and quote is checked against its source.
2. A logged checklist is completed: every claim sourced as described above, findings rather than promises, grades that match the rubric, safety sections that summarize sources without advising, the disclaimer and a last-reviewed date.
3. The page is approved for publication; only an administrator can publish it.

Each compound page is fully re-reviewed every 12 months, sooner if new evidence or a retraction affects it.

If you find a mistake, tell us through the contact page. We correct errors openly in the corrections log. Brands and researchers can send evidence the same way; we weigh it by the same rules.