How to read evidence

Every condition block on a supplement page carries the same signals: a purchase guidance label from the DEX Score, three scored metrics, and an Evidence Review you can read in Simple or Practitioner language.

Evidence Review

Evidence reviews are the first port of call for most SupplementDEX users. They provide a well-researched overview and detailed guidance of the evidence.

Purchase guidance

The headline label is derived from the DEX Score (stars next to it). It answers whether the ingredient is worth buying for that use:

Guidance	Stars	Meaning
Do not purchase	1–2	Ineffective / insufficient evidence — weak case, skip for this use
Reconsider purchase	3	No meaningful benefit — mixed or modest effect
Consider purchase	4	Possibly effective — almost all good quality studies find a benefit. Evidence is strong enough to be worth the money for many people
Proven purchase	5	Clear evidence for benefit and effect — sometimes approved by official guidelines

Stars summarize the DEX Score — a single 1–5 readout from Effect Size, Evidence, and Trust (Effect Size weighted most heavily).

The three metrics

Each metric uses a five-level scale (shown as colored dots). Effect Size bottoms out at Very Low / None; Evidence and Trust use Very Low.

Metric	What it answers
Effect Size	How large / clinically meaningful is the benefit when it works? (Very Low / None = negligible or no meaningful effect)
Evidence	How much research exists (volume and coverage)?
Trust (Confidence)	How much can that research be trusted (design, consistency, quality)?

Evidence and Trust / Confidence use the same grading rubrics documented on DEX Score — structured 1–5 judgments of volume/coverage and of design, consistency, and quality.

Human review

There are edge cases where we use human review — when study design, population, dose, or conflicting results don’t map cleanly to the rubric and require intervention.

See DEX Score for the weighting formula, Evidence and Trust rubrics, star mapping, and how to interpret high vs low scores. On the Effect heatmap, you can sort by condition name, rating, effect size, evidence, confidence, or DEX score.

Simple vs Practitioner

Inside Evidence Review:

Simple — plain-language takeaways for patients and quick scans. Citation markers are hidden.
Practitioner — denser clinical wording, doses, populations, and caveats. Citation markers link into the References section where available.

Same evidence. Different readability and depth.

What else you’ll see on a page

Typical supplement pages also include:

Overview & dosage — what it is and studied protocols
Effect graph — scatter of conditions by study volume vs rating (hover a guidance pill to highlight the matching point)
Effect heatmap — sortable grades across conditions; click a row to jump to that evidence review
Database sections — one block per condition (A–Z), with studies you can expand
Safety / FAQ / References — caveats and source trail

Meta-analyses are highlighted in the study list so the highest-leverage papers are easy to spot.

Page types

Supplements — deep dive on one ingredient
Conditions — map a clinical problem to studied options

Caveats

Evidence changes as new trials publish
Population, dose, duration, and formulation matter
Purchase guidance is not a treatment recommendation — clinical context and contraindications still need judgment
Very Low Trust means the finding isn’t reliable enough to recommend — the DEX Score caps guidance at Reconsider or below even if Effect Size looks large; Proven purchase requires High or Very High Trust
Ratings follow the published rubric; edge cases use human review
We prioritize human-reviewed synthesis of published literature
SupplementDEX naturally filters for higher quality studies. Almost all studies are exclusively randomized controlled trials or meta-analyses.