How we research, review, and correct our work

1. Mission and scope

Paramount Supplements is an independent reviews publication covering dietary supplements relevant to athletic performance, recovery, and general health. We exist to help readers make informed purchasing decisions in a market where most coverage is either commercial in disguise or pseudo-scientific.

Our scope is deliberately narrow: legal, mainstream, evidence-supported supplements available to U.S. consumers. We cover the categories an active person or athlete might reasonably encounter — protein, creatine, beta-alanine, pre-workouts, multivitamins, fish oil, magnesium, sleep aids, and similar.

2. Sourcing hierarchy

When we make a claim, we prefer sources in roughly this order:

1. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in peer-reviewed journals. For sports nutrition specifically: the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Nutrients, Sports Medicine, and Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism.
2. Position stands and consensus statements from professional bodies — the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the American College of Sports Medicine, the National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements, and the Australian Institute of Sport.
3. Individual randomized controlled trials for claims not yet covered by systematic review.
4. Mechanism-of-action research for context, with explicit caveats that mechanism does not imply real-world effect.
5. Third-party testing reports from credible labs (NSF Certified for Sport, Informed Sport, Labdoor, ConsumerLab) for product quality claims.
6. Regulatory and safety alerts from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the European Food Safety Authority, and equivalent bodies for safety claims.

Sources we generally do not rely on for primary claims: brand-funded research where conflicts are not disclosed, animal studies presented as human evidence, n=1 anecdotes, social media testimonials, and non-peer-reviewed pre-prints (used only with explicit caveats).

3. How a review is built

Every product review and ingredient guide on this site goes through four stages:

1. Scope and question. We start with the question a reader is actually trying to answer — “is creatine worth it for someone who lifts three times a week?”, “which whey protein is worth the upcharge?” — and design the article around answering it.
2. Evidence synthesis. We pull relevant systematic reviews, position stands, and recent RCTs. We summarize what the literature converges on, what’s contested, and what’s unknown.
3. Label analysis. For product reviews, we read the supplement facts panel. We compare doses against effective ranges established in the literature, flag proprietary blends, note third-party certifications, and check for ingredient quality (e.g., creatine monohydrate vs. less-studied creatine forms).
4. Editorial drafting. The article is drafted with explicit citations, clear statements of uncertainty, and unambiguous recommendations where the evidence supports them.

4. Editorial and medical review

Every article passes through at least two pairs of eyes before publication.

The first reviewer is an editor on our team who checks for accuracy of citation, internal consistency, clarity of recommendation, and adherence to our editorial standards.

Articles containing medical, clinical, or population-specific claims (e.g., recommendations for pregnant readers, people with chronic conditions, or older adults) are routed to a qualified clinical reviewer — currently a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist contracted as our medical reviewer. The reviewer’s name and credentials appear in the byline of any article they sign off on.

Articles without medical claims (e.g., a flavor comparison of three pre-workout powders) do not require clinical review.

5. Affiliate disclosure and funding

Paramount Supplements is funded by affiliate commissions. When a reader purchases a product through a link on this site, the retailer pays us a percentage of the sale at no additional cost to the reader.

Specifically:

• Every page that contains an affiliate link displays a disclosure at the top of the article. This is required by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (16 CFR Part 255).
• Affiliate relationships do not influence editorial coverage. If we recommend a brand we have no affiliate relationship with, we say so. If two products have affiliate links and the lower-commission one is the better product, we recommend the better product.
• We do not accept payment for coverage, “featured” placement, or favorable rating. Brands cannot buy a review.
• We do not accept free product in exchange for positive reviews. Sample products provided by brands are disclosed inline in the relevant article, and they do not buy favorable coverage.
• We do not run sponsored content, native advertising, or paid product placement.
• We do not sell our email list or share reader data with brands.

6. Conflict of interest policy

Editors and reviewers disclose financial relationships with supplement brands or supplement-adjacent businesses (consulting roles, ownership stakes, speaking fees, advisory positions). Where a conflict exists, the affected editor recuses from coverage of that brand, or the conflict is disclosed inline in the article and a different editor takes the lead.

Our medical reviewer is required to disclose any clinical advisory, consulting, or paid relationship with a manufacturer covered on this site. Their disclosure statement is available on the team page and updated annually.

7. Use of AI tools

We use AI tools in our editorial workflow for specific, bounded tasks: literature search assistance, draft outlining, copy editing for grammar and clarity, schema markup generation, and image alt-text drafting.

We do not use AI to generate the substantive content of articles without human authorship, fact-checking, and editorial review. Every claim, citation, recommendation, and product judgment is made by a human editor with named accountability.

We disclose AI-tool involvement at the bottom of any article where AI played a meaningful role beyond standard editing support.

8. Content updates and freshness

Sports nutrition research moves. A meta-analysis published this year may overturn a position we held last year. Product formulations change. New third-party tests come out. To keep coverage current:

• Every article displays the publication date and the last review date.
• Articles are reviewed for accuracy on a rolling 12-month cycle. If our review confirms the content is still accurate, the review date is updated. If updates are needed, they’re made and logged.
• Significant changes are logged at the bottom of each article under “Update history,” with the date and a short description of what changed.

9. Corrections policy

When we publish something incorrect — a misattributed study, an outdated dose, a math error, a mischaracterized product — we want to fix it.

Our process:

1. Notification. Errors can be reported by email, by contact form, or by social media. We commit to acknowledging correction requests within five business days.
2. Verification. We verify the reported error against original sources. If the report is correct, we proceed to correction. If the report is incorrect or based on misreading, we explain our position to the person who flagged it.
3. Correction. Substantive errors (those that affect a recommendation, a safety claim, or a factual statement) are corrected inline, and a note is added to the bottom of the article describing what was changed and when.
4. Minor errors (typos, formatting, broken links) are fixed quietly without an explicit correction note.

We do not unpublish articles to make corrections disappear. The corrected article remains at its original URL, with the change logged.

10. What we don’t cover, and why

We deliberately exclude several categories of products and topics from this site:

• Prohormones, SARMs, and designer anabolic compounds. Regulatory status is murky in the U.S. and a credible reviews publication has no business steering readers toward them.
• “Test boosters” with proprietary blends. Without disclosed doses, no meaningful review is possible.
• Male enhancement supplements. The evidence base is poor and the FDA has flagged repeated adulteration of products in this category with undisclosed prescription drugs.
• Weight loss products containing DMAA, ephedrine, sibutramine, or other banned stimulants.
• Prescription medications. Outside our remit.
• Personalized medical advice. We publish general educational content. Individual recommendations require a licensed clinician who knows you, your history, and your goals.

11. Contact and feedback

We respond to reader questions, correction requests, and product tips at our contact page. We do not respond to:

• Guest post pitches
• Sponsored content offers
• Link insertion requests, including paid and “exchange” offers
• PR outreach asking to be added to “best of” lists
• Mass-sent press releases

Last reviewed: May 14, 2026. This page is reviewed annually and whenever a policy change is made. Substantive policy changes will be logged here with the date and a summary.