Nutrishatives is your go-to site for health and nutrition questions, but where do you go for questions about Nutrishatives? Right here, to our FAQ page!
What is the criteria for choosing sources for your articles?
Sources ultimately chosen to be included in one of our posts are scrutinized against a laundry list of criteria to help ensure that the articles we provide are the most accurate and up-to-date possible. The criteria are slightly different for the type of source. For websites, sources are only included if:
- They are from respected, authoritative institutions or individuals, such as government institutions, charitable research organizations, nationally recognized medical institutions or well-known experts in a given field. These include organizations such as the National Institutes of Health and the Mayo Clinic, public outreach organizations such as the Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Vitamin D Council and individuals such as professors at research universities or directors of scientific laboratories.
- They are up-to-date. This is determined the by “last updated” date, the copyright date and/or links to current references, or opinions that reflect the most current scientific literature.
For scientific literature, sources are only included if:
- They are relevant to the topic at hand.
- They have no blatant financial conflicts of interest (most journals require authors to disclose how a study was funded, which allows us to determine if those funding the study could benefit from positive results).
- They are the most recent studies available for a given topic OR are foundational studies that proved a concept for the first time (this is usually made clear by every single other study on the subject referencing a this study in their introductions or discussions)
- They are human-based studies OR animal-based studies for which there is evidence similar mechanisms likely exist in people
- They make sense in a broader context. If a study totally contradicts all the evidence from other studies on the subject at hand or studies in related fields, this study will be excluded UNLESS it clearly explains why all the studies up until that point had been wrong. (That happens sometimes! Somebody’s gotta be the first to fix it!)
Though it is not strictly required, scientific articles are preferentially included:
- That have been cited frequently by other papers (most journals offer data on how often an article has been cited when you open a study). This is a good sign the study is groundbreaking or foundational for future studies. Additionally, it means that the study has survived the scrutiny of the hundreds or thousands of other scientists in the field.
- That were published in high-rated journals, such as Nature, Cell or the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Though this is not always the case by any means, high-rated journals typically have higher peer-review standards and publish more reliable studies.
How is the site funded?
Currently, Nutrishatives is privately funded.
How do we pick our affiliate products?
The affiliate products you find on our site are carefully chosen by our research team and our research team alone. No one in charge of financial or marketing activities is involved in the selection process. Each product is scrutinized against the currently available, applicable science. Products are only chosen which:
- contain scientifically supported active ingredients at doses shown to be effective and safe in human studies.
- do not contain any secondary active ingredients unnecessary to the product to minimize any risk of interactions or side effects.
Once a product has passed these tests, the research team then looks at customer reviews. This helps weed out products that come with logistical or practical down-sides (difficult to swallow, tastes terrible, etc.). It also helps weed out products from companies that may be regularly unfriendly or difficult with their customers. If dozens of products pass these hurdles and the team needs to thin the herd, price is also taken into consideration. Everyone wants the best bang for their buck possible — if there are two products that offer the same benefits and one costs less, we promote the one that lets you save more of your money.
How are ads chosen?
Nutrishatives’ content requires a lot of research. It takes time, money, and hard work to maintain a website, so we need to earn a small revenue through advertisements. At present, we’re running Google Ads on the site. Unfortunately, we don’t have much control over what ads will appear on our pages.
We care deeply about your experience while on our site, however, that’s why we blocked ads from categories related to sensitive topics such as Religion, Politics, and References to Sex and Sexuality. We specifically picked ads in the Nutrition and Health category. If you have enabled cookies on your browser, however, you will be shown ads based on your browsing history. You can learn more about cookies here.
What are the authors’ backgrounds?
Nutrishatives’ writing staff has a diverse background in health, nutrition, physical education and herbs. In addition to formal certifications and higher education degrees (including medical practitioner certificates, Bachelor’s degrees, Master’s degrees and PhDs) our authors have a broad base of personal and professional experience within their respective health fields.
To learn more about an individual author’s background and qualifications, please see the short biography provided at the end of each article or visit our meet the team page. If you have any questions that aren’t answered here, please contact us!