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Method and limits

How this site works

A health site is worth what its sourcing is worth. This page sets out where everything here comes from, what is deliberately left out, and what none of it can tell you.

Everything here is extracted, not written

The pages on this site are generated from the manuscript of the book and from the research manuscript behind it. A book chapter page carries that chapter's opening as printed, its protocol, its verdicts, its mismatch card and every work it cites; a reference topic carries the longer entry's card, graded recommendations and Skeptic's Corner, with the sources behind those. A glossary entry carries the definition as the book gives it. A correction carries the correction as printed.

No page on this site contains a claim about biology or health that is not in the book. The book carries 488 notes and the research manuscript behind it 2,076, which resolve to 2,315 distinct sources. That is the point of building it this way: a site assembled from rows cannot drift from its source, and cannot invent a study.

What is here, and what is in the book

Published here

  • The opening of every chapter, as printed
  • All 43 mismatch cards in full
  • All 234 graded recommendations
  • All 44 Skeptic's Corners in full
  • The glossary, 118 terms
  • The 71 corrections
  • The source register, 2,315 citations
  • The 30-day protocol and its safety section

In the book

  • The argument itself, chapter by chapter
  • The studies described in full, with their methods and limits
  • The people and the scenes the evidence came from
  • All 2,564 notes, with their annotations
  • The chapter making the case against the book
  • The reader's guide and further reading

Who grades the evidence

The author, Neil P. Bostick, is a writer, not a clinician. The grades are not a clinical judgment: they follow the book's stated method, which grades a claim by the kind of study behind it, using the three definitions below. Nothing here is medical advice; read the book's disclaimer.

The grades, and how to quote them

  • StrongEvidence grade: Strong. Multiple randomized controlled trials, or consistent large cohort studies with a well-understood mechanism.

    Multiple randomized controlled trials, or consistent large cohort studies with a well-understood mechanism.

  • ProbableEvidence grade: Probable. Good observational evidence with a plausible mechanism, or small or few trials.

    Good observational evidence with a plausible mechanism, or small or few trials.

  • EmergingEvidence grade: Emerging. Early, small, animal-only, or actively contested.

    Early, small, animal-only, or actively contested.

A claim quoted without its grade has had the most useful part removed. An emerging claim repeated as settled is a misquotation, whoever repeats it. The full register gives every recommendation with its mark and its chapter.

Corrections

The first edition of this book got things wrong. Some were figures with no traceable source, some were claims that later evidence reversed, and some were attributions to the wrong researcher. All 71 are published, with the chapter that now carries the right version. If you find an error on this site or in the book, it belongs in that register too.

Machine-readable copies

The register is published as JSON as well as HTML, so it can be quoted accurately by anything that reads it. Each file carries its own citation line, the grade definitions and the standing limits, because a claim quoted without its grade has had the useful part removed.

Disclosure

This site exists to support a book, and links to Amazon are links to buy that book. There are no advertisements, no sponsored content, no supplement partnerships and no affiliate relationships with anything described in the research.

The site uses Google Analytics to count visits. See the privacy notice for what that collects.

The standing limit

Nothing on this site is medical advice, and nothing on it is a reason to stop, skip or adjust a prescribed treatment. Several of the recommendations come with conditions: cold water, sauna and hot baths, fasting and eating windows, barefoot walking and breath practice all have people who should ask a clinician first. Those conditions are part of the recommendation, not a footnote to it.