Every chip is a claim.
We have tried to grade everything here on the science, balanced by spirit. Three ladders do that work, and this page says exactly what each rung means, so a chip is something you can hold us to rather than a piece of decoration.
A grade describes the strength of the evidence behind an entry, never the strength of our enthusiasm. Nothing on this site is medical advice, a grade least of all: it is a reading level for the research, so you can weigh things yourself and bring the good questions to your own clinician.
Peptides: the regulatory ladder
Peptide entries are for information and research purposes only. Their ladder follows regulators, because for compounds the meaningful question is who has examined the evidence with the power to say no.
- FDA-Approved
- Approved by the FDA for at least one use in people. The strongest standing a compound can have, and still not a promise it does what a seller says for the use they are selling.
- Human-Trialed
- Tested in people in published trials, without approval at the end of them. Trial size and quality vary enormously, and the entry says so where it matters.
- Approved Abroad
- Approved by a regulator somewhere other than the FDA. A real bar cleared, and a different bar than the one American readers usually mean.
- Preclinical
- Animal or cell work only. This is where most of the excitement lives and where most of it dies, which is worth remembering in the same breath.
- Anecdotal
- Reports from people using it, with no controlled evidence behind them. Not nothing, and not data.
The libraries: the evidence ladder
Supplements, skincare, and the practice libraries use four words for how much human evidence sits behind an entry, and the entry's own evidence note says what that evidence actually found.
- Strong evidence
- Multiple good trials in people, pointing the same way. The closest this field gets to settled.
- Moderate evidence
- Real human evidence with real gaps: fewer trials, smaller ones, or effects that show up inconsistently.
- Emerging evidence
- Early human work or strong preclinical signals. Promising is the word, and promising is not proven.
- Mixed evidence
- Studies exist and disagree. The entry says what the disagreement is about rather than picking the friendlier half.
The home: measured, plausible, tradition
The rooms you live in are not a clinical trial, so the home section grades differently, and the third rung is the point.
- Measured
- Backed by real evidence or plain physics: humidity and dust mites, enzymes and water temperature, morning light and the body clock.
- Plausible
- The reasoning is sound and the testing is thin. A cleared doorway lowers friction every time you leave the house; nobody has run the trial, and nobody needs to.
- Tradition
- Inherited practice, named as such. Feng shui has arranged rooms for centuries and the palettes carry lineages older than any journal. Traditions passed down through generations belong here, because not everything was meant to be measured.
Where a grade changes, the entry changes with it. If you find one that reads wrong against the research, we would genuinely like to know.