We read the trial before we print the claim.
At a glance
Independent by design
No brand buys coverage or sees a draft.
Payments declared
Sponsorship, affiliate income and samples are all disclosed.
Label dose, trial dose
The dose on the label sits beside the dose that was studied.
Numbers corrected
A wrong figure is fixed, with the old and new values shown.
- Editorial independence
- Reporting with care
- Access, gifts and samples
- Partner and sponsored content
- Reviews and recommendations
- Corrections and updates
- Conflicts of interest
- Tools and transparency
Editorial independence
Half Life decides what to measure on editorial grounds alone: a claim worth testing, a founder who can name their form and their milligrams, a trial worth reading. Stories, monographs and lines in The Friday Dose are not for sale, and neither is our silence. Nobody at a brand sees a draft, a number or a headline before it runs.
Advertising is sold at a distance from the editorial desk. It can buy a labelled page; it cannot buy coverage or a conclusion, and it has no say in what the editors write.
- Coverage cannot be written into a contract.
- Brands do not approve copy, quotes, numbers or headlines.
- Advertisers are measured by the same standard as everyone else.
Reporting with care
We read the label, then the study the label leans on, and we report the gap. The dose in the trial sits beside the dose on the label whenever both exist. A mouse, a cell culture or an eight-person pilot is reported as exactly that, never as a result in people. We say how large a trial was, how long it ran, what it measured and, where we can find out, who paid for it.
Half Life is not medical advice, and we do not diagnose or prescribe. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and no supplement here is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Ask a doctor or pharmacist before starting one, especially alongside prescription medicines or in pregnancy.
- No supplement is described as treating, curing or preventing a disease.
- "Clinically proven" is a phrase we do not use; we say what the trial showed.
- Effects are reported with their size, not only their direction.
Access, gifts and samples
Brands send samples, white papers and invitations. Samples and documents are accepted; obligations are not. A sample does not earn a story, and no conclusion depends on one.
Any sample, event or trip behind a story is disclosed in it. We do not exchange favourable coverage for access, an exclusive, an early look at unpublished data or a paid advisory role.
- A free tub buys no milligram of coverage.
- Anything beyond the product goes back.
- Paid travel is disclosed, along with who paid.
Partner and sponsored content
The paid formats at Half Life are sponsored features, sponsored monographs and placements in The Friday Dose. The first thing on any of them is the label, "Sponsored" or "In partnership with", and the name of the brand that paid. They are produced outside the editorial desk and are never formatted to look like our reporting.
Every dose on a sponsored page is checked against its source, as it would be in editorial, and the same claims rules and corrections policy apply. If a sponsor wants a claim the evidence does not support, it does not run.
- The sponsor's name is at the top, before any number.
- No sponsor can buy a story or an editorial monograph.
- Sponsored copy meets the same evidence rules as editorial.
Reviews and recommendations
Products appear in Shop this story and on the cabinet shelves for one reason, their place in the story: the formula whose dose we checked, the product an interview turns on. Prices and serving sizes are as the brand listed them on publication day; both are variables. Some links may carry an affiliate code, which can earn us a small commission on a purchase at zero cost to you. A commission never moves a conclusion.
We describe a product by its form, its dose and the evidence for that dose, and we attribute every claim to whoever made it. When a proprietary blend hides the amounts, we say so. When an editor has taken a product, the story says so; when it does not, read it as an analysis, not a trial of one.
- Shelf space in Shop this story is not for sale.
- An affiliate link adds nothing to the price.
- Hidden doses are reported as hidden.
Corrections and updates
When we get something wrong, we correct it in public. The fix goes into the story with a dated note at the end, and a wrong number is shown beside the right one. Nothing is silently recalculated.
Prices, links and stock levels are updated silently; they are not findings. A reformulated product, a retracted study or a new trial that changes the picture is noted. A founder or brand who finds a misattributed statement or an outdated figure can send us the source, and we will correct the story, update it or, where that is fairer, retract it.
- Corrections are dated, and numerical ones show both figures.
- Typographical errors are fixed without a note, unless they were in a number.
- Founders and brands who write in get a reply from an editor.
Conflicts of interest
Anyone at Half Life with equity in, a paid role at or a personal tie to a brand is kept off its story. If a conflict is unavoidable, it is printed in the story.
Half Life is one of several titles from VOL Collective; a founder can appear in more than one, measured each time against that title's questions. A commercial relationship between VOL Collective and a brand we cover is disclosed in the story, and so is brand funding behind any study we cite, or authors who work for the brand.
- Financial interests are declared before the first number is checked.
- Contributors disclose consulting, advisory and paid work for supplement makers.
- Industry funding behind a cited study is disclosed.
Tools and transparency
We show our working. Every story comes with a byline and a date, figures come with their sources, a claim that needs context gets an editors' note, and every monograph is fully referenced. Photographs are credited.
The tools we use are public, so you can check our numbers: PubMed for the primary studies; ClinicalTrials.gov for registered trials and what they set out to measure; the Cochrane Library for systematic reviews; the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements fact sheets and upper limits; and the Retraction Watch Database for studies that have since been withdrawn.
- Monographs carry full references, and stories name their studies.
- Doses are given in milligrams, not adjectives.
- When our practices change, so does this page.
Tell us where our numbers are off.
Found a wrong dose, a misread trial or a conflict we did not declare? Write to the editors with the source. We read every message, and if we change something, we will show you what.
