How we work

Every video and article here starts in the same place: the published literature, read in order of what it can actually support.

1. We start from a question, not from a product

Topics come from what people are actually asking, and from where the evidence and the marketing disagree. We do not take topic requests from companies, because no company has any relationship with us.

2. We search systematically, and we say how far we got

For each topic we search the major biomedical databases for the highest levels of evidence first — meta-analyses, systematic reviews, then randomized controlled trials. We record what we found and what we read.

When we make a coverage claim, it means a specific thing: we reviewed approximately X% of the identifiable high-level evidence on this topic. We do not say “all the literature.” Nobody can honestly say that.

3. We read for three things, every time

Study design and sample size. The size of the effect, with its uncertainty. What the authors themselves say the limits are. A study that shows an effect in 20 people is not the same as one that shows it in 2,000, and we will always tell you which one we are looking at.

4. We match the strength of our language to the strength of the evidence

When several good trials agree, we say so plainly and give you the numbers. When the evidence is thin, contested, or comes only from small unblinded studies, we say that too — in the same breath, not in a footnote. “There is not enough evidence to answer this yet” is a complete answer here, and we will give it.

5. We show our sources on screen

When a number is spoken, its citation appears with it: authors, journal, year, sample size, DOI. Full references are in every description and at the end of every article. Where a paper is open access we may show the page or figure itself; where it is not, we redraw the data as our own chart and label it as redrawn, with the citation.

6. We do not answer individual medical questions

Not in comments, not by message. We cannot examine you and we do not know your history. What we can do is tell you what the research says in general, so that your conversation with your own clinician is a better one.

7. We correct ourselves in public

Evidence changes. Papers get retracted. We get things wrong. When that happens we update the content and log the change on our corrections page — dated, and describing what was wrong. Corrections are never silent and never deleted.

8. Nobody pays us to say anything

Who writes this

Raşit Tümer, Physician (MD) — a physician who reads the research in medical aesthetics and presents it here. Professional background: drtumer.com