Every entry below was independently verified against the primary source — not just checked for a working link, but read to confirm it actually says what it's cited for. Where our own research surfaced a mismatch between a claim and its source, we corrected the claim on the page in question rather than publish a citation that doesn't hold up; see How We Source Claims. This bibliography currently covers the sourced claims already published across the site and will grow as new investigations are added.
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The evidence behind What the Label Doesn't Tell You and the How to Read a Health Claim research guide.
The central case study of Book One. Found an 18% increase in lung cancer diagnoses and an 8% increase in deaths among smokers given beta-carotene — the opposite of the hypothesized protective effect.
Cited in: What the Label Doesn't Tell You, Health Claims guide
Read the source →Run independently of ATBC on a comparable population of smokers and asbestos-exposed workers, CARET reached the same negative conclusion — both trials stopped their beta-carotene arms early.
Cited in: What the Label Doesn't Tell You
Read the source →A pooled analysis across multiple trials and national brands, confirming the beta-carotene risk signal held up beyond any single study.
Cited in: What the Label Doesn't Tell You
Read the source →The federal task force's review found an overall 20% increased lung cancer risk associated with beta-carotene supplementation, concentrated among smokers.
Cited in: What the Label Doesn't Tell You
Read the source →Book One's second confirming example: early observational enthusiasm for a supplement reversing under a large, rigorous trial.
Cited in: What the Label Doesn't Tell You
Read the source →The agency's own consumer-facing guidance, used to confirm exactly what the FDA does and does not claim to verify before a supplement reaches a shelf.
Cited in: What the Label Doesn't Tell You
Read the source →The foundational statute of this investigation — the law that classifies supplements as a food category and removed premarket safety and efficacy review.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle, What Should Change
Read the source →The regulatory definition distinguishing a structure/function claim from a disease claim — the line nearly all supplement marketing copy is written against.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle, Regulatory Gap guide
Read the source →The federal post-market surveillance data behind the 79,000+ adverse event figure cited throughout Book Two.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle
Read the source →The FDA's only use of its DSHEA authority to remove an entire ingredient category from the market — the regulatory record behind Case One in Book Three.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle, Prove It
Read the source →The federal court case over whether red yeast rice containing concentrated lovastatin should be regulated as a drug — reversed on appeal, then won by the FDA on narrow grounds. The basis of Case Two in Book Three.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle, Prove It
Read the source →The FDA's original administrative determination that Cholestin's concentrated drug compound disqualified it from supplement status.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle, Prove It
Read the source →The ongoing federal registry of products found spiked with undisclosed pharmaceutical ingredients — the evidentiary basis for Case Three in Book Three, built from the pattern rather than a single company.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle, Prove It
Read the source →The FDA's original 2022 exclusion determination for NMN and its 2025 reversal — the timeline behind Case Four in Book Three.
Cited in: Prove It
Read the source →The evidence behind The Hollow Aisle and the When Natural Isn't Safe research guide.
The DILIN registry study behind Book Two's central risk finding — the rise from 7% to 20% of documented liver injury cases attributed to supplements, and the finding that 40% of implicated green tea extract products didn't list the compound on their label.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle, Risk & Interactions guide
Read the source →The documented case of heart transplant rejection linked to a St. John's Wort–cyclosporine interaction — the clearest single interaction case in the entire investigation.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle, Risk & Interactions guide
Read the source →The widely discussed meta-analysis behind the cardiovascular risk caveat attached to calcium supplementation, even where fracture-risk benefit is genuine.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle, Prove It
Read the source →The evidence behind The Hollow Aisle and the Who Profits From Belief research guide.
A review of dozens of MLM companies' own income disclosures, finding most participants earned $1,000 or less annually — and that most participants earned nothing at all in at least 17 companies reviewed.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle, The Business guide
Read the source →Survey data corroborating the FTC findings — nearly half of MLM participants reported losing money once expenses were accounted for.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle
Read the source →The original source of the 25-hour minimum nutrition education recommendation that U.S. medical schools have fallen short of for four decades.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle
Read the source →Survey data showing U.S. medical schools averaging 19–24 hours of nutrition education against the 25-hour recommended minimum.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle
Read the source →Reporting on the 2025 agreement by more than fifty U.S. medical schools to expand nutrition curricula to roughly 40 hours, confirming the training gap this investigation documents.
Cited in: The Hollow Aisle
Read the source →One half of the VITAL trial (25,871 participants) — found no significant reduction in cancer incidence from vitamin D supplementation.
Cited in: Prove It
Read the source →The companion VITAL result for omega-3 supplementation — no significant reduction in the composite cardiovascular endpoint, but a real 28% reduction in heart attack risk specifically.
Cited in: Prove It
Read the source →The largest trial ever run on ginkgo biloba for dementia prevention (3,069 participants) — found no protective effect.
Cited in: Prove It
Read the source →A 225-patient randomized trial finding saw palmetto did not improve BPH symptoms compared with placebo.
Cited in: Prove It
Read the source →A follow-up 369-patient trial testing escalating doses up to three times standard — reached the same negative conclusion at every dose.
Cited in: Prove It
Read the source →The source of "dysrationalia" — research finding that general intelligence correlates only weakly with resistance to cognitive bias, central to Book Three's chapter on why smart people believe unproven claims.
Cited in: Prove It
Read the source →The independent scientific review commissioned ahead of the FDA's 2004 ephedra ban, cited in Case One of Book Three.
Cited in: Prove It
Read the source →The evidence behind Prove It, Chapter 9, and the What Other Countries Do research guide.
The regulatory basis for Canada's premarket licensing system (Natural Product Number), evidence-scaled through a monograph model — one of two working alternatives behind the appendix's recommended framework.
Cited in: Prove It, What Should Change
Read the source →The regulatory basis for Australia's three-tier, risk-based classification system — the second working alternative behind the appendix's recommended model.
Cited in: Prove It, What Should Change
Read the source →The EU's positive-list framework — only listed vitamins, minerals, and forms may be used in a supplement, prohibited otherwise since August 2005.
Cited in: Prove It, International Comparison guide
Read the source →The EU's premarket safety evaluation requirement for any ingredient without a documented history of use before 1997.
Cited in: Prove It
Read the source →No sources match your search.
If you believe a citation on this page has been misrepresented, reach out through Coleman Publishing or brokenpromiseshealthcare.org — it will be reviewed.