Sources
Every figure on this site that did not come off the label came from one of the sources below. This page lists them and then explains what each kind of document actually is.
Every source cited on this site was opened and read when the page citing it was written. Nothing here cites a document that was not read, and no identifier on this site was written from memory.
Where a claim could not be verified against one of these, the page says so rather than using it. That is why several pages on this site end in an absence instead of a figure.
The rule this list follows
Worth stating before the list, because it is what makes the list worth anything.
A citation is a promise that somebody went and looked. It is also the easiest thing on a supplement site to fake, because a plausible-looking reference to a real journal costs nothing to type and almost nobody follows one.
- Every source below was opened while the page citing it was being written, and re-opened at each review pass.
- Nothing is cited that was not read. No source appears on this site because it is generally known to say something relevant.
- No identifier was written from memory. Every regulation number, title and URL below was copied from the document itself.
- Where a claim could not be verified against one of these, the page states the absence instead of using the claim.
- No source is paraphrased into a stronger statement than it makes. Where a regulator wrote a condition, the condition is quoted with it.
The practical consequence is visible throughout the site. There is no figure for how many organisms survive shipping, no estimate of a decay curve, and no dose comparison for the probiotic — because no source was found that would support one, and none of the three would have been difficult to invent.
Every source cited on this site
Eight sources. Each is listed with its publisher, its full title, a link, and a note saying exactly which claim on this site rests on it.
- Office of Dietary Supplements, National Institutes of HealthProbiotics — Health Professional Fact Sheet · sourceThe definition of a probiotic, what colony-forming units are, the fact that US regulations require total microorganism weight rather than viable CFU, the advice to prefer products stating CFU at end of shelf life, strain specificity, and the safety record in immunocompromised people.
- European UnionCommission Regulation (EU) 2015/2314 of 7 December 2015 authorising a health claim made on foods · source“Chicory inulin contributes to normal bowel function by increasing stool frequency”, authorised only for food providing a daily intake of 12 g of native chicory inulin. The source of the 12 g figure used throughout this site.
- European UnionCommission Regulation (EU) No 432/2012 of 16 May 2012 establishing a list of permitted health claims made on foods · sourceThe authorised resistant starch claim — “replacing digestible starches with resistant starch in a meal contributes to a reduction in the blood glucose rise after that meal” — and its condition that resistant starch be at least 14% of total starch.
- European UnionCommission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/168 of 8 February 2022 authorising pasteurised Akkermansia muciniphila as a novel food · sourceOnly the pasteurised form is authorised, for adults excluding pregnant and lactating women, at up to 3.4 × 10¹⁰ cells a day, under a named strain and a required designation.
- U.S. Food and Drug AdministrationDaily Value on the Nutrition and Supplement Facts Labels · sourceThe Daily Value for dietary fibre is 28 g, and FDA's own rule of thumb that 5% DV or less of a nutrient per serving is low and 20% or more is high.
- U.S. Food and Drug AdministrationDietary Supplement Labeling Guide, Chapter IV: Nutrition Labeling · sourceWhat a Supplement Facts panel must carry, and the proprietary-blend rule: the blend's total weight on its own line with the ingredients listed underneath in descending order of predominance by weight.
- Federal Trade CommissionGut Check: A Reference Guide for Media on Spotting False Weight Loss Claims · sourceThe claims FTC says are always false, beginning with weight loss of two pounds or more a week for a month or more without dieting or exercise.
- U.S. Food and Drug AdministrationAvoiding Products Contaminated with Hidden Ingredients · sourceFDA cannot test products before they reach the market, its database covers only a small fraction of what is out there, and buyers are told to be wary of products carrying multiple rave reviews.
What NIH’s Office of Dietary Supplements is
The single most heavily used source on this site, and the one closest to a neutral referee.
The Office of Dietary Supplements is part of the National Institutes of Health. It exists to strengthen knowledge about dietary supplements, and it publishes fact sheets on individual ingredients in two versions: one for consumers and a longer one for health professionals. This site cites the health professional version.
- What it is
- A government literature review. It summarises what the published research says, including where the research is weak, absent or contradictory.
- How much weight it carries
- A great deal, and for a specific reason: it has no product to sell and no claim to defend. It is also explicit about uncertainty, which is the quality that makes a source usable.
- What it is not
- Not a regulator’s decision and not an approval. ODS does not authorise anything; it describes evidence.
- What this site takes from it
- The definition of a probiotic, what colony-forming units are, the fact that US regulations require total microorganism weight rather than viable CFU, the advice to prefer products stating CFU at end of shelf life, strain specificity, and the safety record in people who are severely ill or immunocompromised.
Where this site says “NIH records” or “ODS is explicit that”, that fact sheet is the document being described, and the sentence is usually close to its wording.
Why a United States site cites European regulations
Three of the eight sources are EU instruments. This is the explanation, and it is not that they govern this product.
An EU authorising regulation is a legal instrument. When a company wants to make a health claim on a food sold in the European Union, the European Food Safety Authority examines the evidence and publishes a scientific opinion. If the opinion is favourable, the European Commission may authorise the claim by regulation — and the regulation prints the exact wording permitted and the conditions of use.
The conditions are why this site cites them. They are the point at which a body that examined the evidence wrote down a number. Regulation (EU) 2015/2314 does not merely say chicory inulin helps bowel function; it says the claim may be used only for food providing a daily intake of 12 g of native chicory inulin.
- What an authorising regulation is
- A published decision, with the permitted claim wording and the conditions attached to it, made after a scientific assessment. It is binding in the European Union.
- What an EFSA opinion behind it is
- The scientific assessment itself: the published reasoning a panel of scientists produced from the submitted evidence before the Commission decided anything. The regulation is the decision; the opinion is the argument for it.
- Does any of it govern a product sold in the United States?
- No. This is a US product and EU regulations do not apply to it. Nothing on this site says or implies that this product is unlawful, and it would have no basis to.
- Then why cite it at all?
- Because it is the most specific published figure anybody has produced for these ingredients. Nobody has to accept an EU decision to find it useful that a regulator examined chicory inulin and wrote down 12 grams.
- How this site labels them
- Every time. Each page that uses one of these figures says it is a published figure rather than the governing law here, usually in the same paragraph.
The three EU instruments cited are the chicory inulin authorisation, the permitted-claims list containing the resistant starch claim and its 14% condition, and the novel food authorisation for pasteurised Akkermansia muciniphila. The third is the most striking, because it sets four conditions and this label meets none of them.
The two FDA sources, and what each is for
One is a consumer warning page. One is a guidance document for the industry. They do very different jobs.
The Food and Drug Administration publishes several kinds of document and they carry different weight. This site uses three of them, and it is worth knowing which is which.
A consumer page
Written for buyers. FDA’s page on avoiding products contaminated with hidden ingredients says FDA cannot test products before they reach the market, that its own database covers a small fraction of what is on sale, and that buyers should be wary of products carrying multiple rave reviews.
cited on the reviews page
A labeling guide
Written for the industry. The Dietary Supplement Labeling Guide sets out what a Supplement Facts panel must contain, including the proprietary-blend rule: the blend’s total weight on its own line, ingredients underneath in descending order of predominance by weight.
cited on the label pages
A Daily Value reference
FDA’s page on Daily Values gives the reference intakes used on nutrition and supplement labels — 28 g a day for dietary fibre — and its own rule of thumb that 5% or less of a Daily Value is low and 20% or more is high.
cited on the arithmetic pages
- How much weight a guidance document carries
- It represents the agency’s current thinking and is the clearest available statement of what a label is supposed to contain. This site uses it to say what a panel must carry, never to say that a particular product complies or does not.
- How much weight a consumer page carries
- It is advice, plainly written, and it is the regulator telling buyers what to be careful of. It is quoted on this site rather than paraphrased, because the wording is the part that matters.
- What none of them is
- An approval of anything. FDA does not approve dietary supplements before they are sold, and a mark on a bottle saying a facility is FDA-registered is a filing rather than an inspection or an endorsement.
What FTC guidance is
A different agency, a different question: not what is in the bottle, but what may be said about it.
The Federal Trade Commission regulates advertising. Its reference guide for media on spotting false weight-loss claims was written to help publishers refuse advertisements, and it is unusually blunt for a government document.
It lists claims that are always false — beginning with weight loss of two pounds or more a week for a month or more without dieting or exercise. Not unproven, not unsubstantiated: false, whatever product is making them.
- How much weight it carries here
- It is the reason this site never writes a sentence about what the capsule will do to a body. Not because of a cautious house style, but because the specific shape of claim is one the regulator has already ruled out.
- How the label’s own claims are handled
- The bottle prints “Metabolic & Digestive Support”, “Supports Appetite Control And Satiety” and “Promotes Energy Production From Fats”, each with an asterisk. They are quoted on this site as claims, with the asterisk and the FDA disclaimer attached, and never restated as effects.
- Why that distinction matters
- A structure/function claim does not require FDA approval and is not evidence that anything happens. Repeating one without its asterisk turns a permitted claim into a statement of fact, which is the single most common thing supplement pages do wrong.
It is also the source behind the absence of any before-and-after imagery on this site. Two of the six refused images were body-change photographs, which are a weight-loss claim made without words.
What is not in this list
A source list is also a statement about what was looked for and not found.
- No clinical trial of this product. None was supplied and none was found. Every study-level source here is about an ingredient, not about SlimTide.
- No certificate of analysis, laboratory report or test result. None was supplied. The lot and certificate references in the pack — SLI-26/SL-7735 and SLI-7735-26-SL — are draft label references and are described as such everywhere they appear.
- No named clinician. The bottle carries a “Doctor Formulated” mark and no name, credential or role was supplied for anyone.
- No source for any figure about live organisms in this product. There is no published count at manufacture, none at end of shelf life, and no stability data, so this site publishes no figure for what survives.
- No customer data. The review figures supplied were described by their own author as layout copy and are not used as evidence of anything except templating.
Every one of those absences is a place where a page on this site stops rather than continuing with an invented figure. Reading the list above beside the list of sources is the fastest way to see where the evidence actually ran out.