Sources & Citation Policy
Inside Peptides primary literature sourcing standards: PubMed records, DOI citations, clinical trial registries, and zero secondary vendor links.
This page sets out our publishing commitments. External medical review is a separate process; check the review status on each article.
Match the source to the claim
Sources are selected for their ability to answer the specific question. Clinical benefit requires relevant human evidence; a receptor experiment can support a mechanism description; approval status requires official regulatory documentation for the product, indication, and jurisdiction.
A systematic review is a synthesis, not a primary experiment. It may provide a strong overview, but its conclusions depend on its search methods and included studies. We distinguish original research, evidence syntheses, guidance, and background explanations.
Preferred research material
For treatment effects, prioritize well-conducted controlled human research and rigorous syntheses of relevant studies. Observational studies may inform associations, longer-term outcomes, and safety signals when their limitations are explained.
Early human, animal, and cellular studies can be included for context, with the research setting visible in the claim. A larger number of preclinical papers does not establish a clinical benefit.
Official records and regulatory claims
Approval claims should identify the relevant authority, product, indication, and geography. Official labels, assessment reports, and regulator communications take priority over a commercial summary of those records.
Trial registries help identify planned methods, recruitment status, and reported results. Registration alone does not mean a trial demonstrated benefit, completed successfully, or resulted in approval. Registry entries and published papers should be checked for differences.
What we extract from a study
Source checking should record the research setting, population, intervention, comparator, design, sample size, follow-up, relevant outcomes, and limitations. Funding and author disclosures should be examined when available.
Editors should consult the full report where accessible. If only an abstract is available, the explanation must stay within what can be verified and must not imply that unavailable methods or safety details were examined.
Citations readers can follow
References should identify the article or official document, authors or issuing organization, publication date, and a stable link. DOI, PMID, and trial identifiers should be included where available; not every legitimate source has all three.
A citation must support the statement beside it. We prefer direct links to the paper, official record, or document rather than search results, promotional pages, or a secondary article that obscures the original finding.
Preprints, abstracts, and unpublished results
Preprints and conference abstracts must be identified as preliminary and, where relevant, not peer reviewed. They should not silently replace a complete published report or carry more certainty than their available detail allows.
Press releases and sponsor announcements may identify an emerging topic but do not substitute for an independently assessable study report. If results remain unavailable, the article should say so.
Commercial and anecdotal material
Vendor descriptions, affiliate articles, influencer claims, forums, and testimonials are not accepted as evidence of clinical effectiveness or safety. They may explain why a claim needs examination, but they do not validate it.
Industry-funded research is assessed on its methods, relevance, and reporting, with conflicts considered. Funding by industry is neither automatic proof that a finding is false nor a reason to overlook potential bias.
Retractions, duplicate reports, and balance
Check for corrections, retractions, and later reports before relying on a source. Multiple papers from one trial should not be counted as independent replications. Older sources may remain useful, but should be interpreted alongside relevant newer evidence.
Searches should look for contradictory and null findings as well as supportive results. A source’s indexing or journal prestige does not guarantee quality. If evidence is missing, inaccessible, or inconsistent, readers should be told how that limits the account.