The Supp Digest | The Clinical Study Reality Check
Welcome to The Digest, your guide to key insights and updates across the SuppCo community.
In this series, we dig into the fascinating (and anonymous) trends SuppCo sees from our unique vantage point to help you make sense of supplements.
In our last two installments of Science Corner, we've been peeling back the curtain on clinical studies for supplements, and how to identify strong science from questionable or premature claims. We've covered what makes a study reliable, how to spot cherry-picked data, and why the phrase "clinically proven" isn't always what it seems.
But questions remain: how many supplements have even been studied? Are those products popular? Accessible?
SuppCo's database gives us unique insight into these questions. Let's dive in.
The Product View
There are currently ~75,500 unique products in SuppCo user stacks. Of those, just 73 products have met the TrustScore bar as a clinically studied product.
To put that number in perspective, that's less than 0.1% of all stacked products on SuppCo with a clinical study to support their efficacy.
Yes, you read that right. Less than one-tenth of one percent.
These 73 clinically studied products come from 33 unique brands that have an average TrustScore of 8.1 (Very Good). While having a clinically studied product isn't sufficient on its own to get a strong TrustScore, it is a positive indicator of a brand that takes the quality and efficacy of their products seriously.
Curious if the products in your stack have been studied? For any product with a TrustScore, you can check whether it has been clinically studied in the Technical Innovation section of the score.
The Community View
Let's next look at how the SuppCo community is using these 73 clinically studied products.
Of our over 170,000 SuppCo users, 14% have a clinically studied product in their stack. That's roughly 1 SuppCo user out of every 7. If you're in that 14%, give yourself a pat on the back!
Which clinically studied products are the most popular? The 3 most highly stacked clinically studied products each feature in over 2,000 stacks:
The Takeaway
The supplement space has long reigned outside of the purview of the FDA’s strict efficacy and safety standards.
And while the FDA still does not require dietary supplements to show benefit in the body before they can be sold to everyday consumers, supplement brands are starting to take on these studies as a way to distinguish their products from the sea of options flooding the market.
The data is clear: we're in the very early innings of evidence-based supplementation. With tens of thousands of products available and less than 100 backed by clinical studies, there's enormous room for growth in supplement research.
As a supplement user community, we can continue to reinforce this trend by choosing products and brands that have gone the extra mile to show that their products really work. Every time we choose a clinically studied product, we're voting with our wallets for a more evidence-based supplement industry.
The next time you're thinking about adding something new to your stack, do a quick check on the product's TrustScore to see if it's been clinically studied. With TrustScore, you can know with confidence that a product has been proven to help you achieve your goals.
Call for Topics
Do you have topics or trends you'd like to see covered in this newsletter? Drop us a note at support@supp.co.
Fresh Additions
Here are a few products we've added TrustScores for recently that have been clinically studied:
Community
Help grow our community! Know someone who's curious about which supplements actually work? Share SuppCo with them—because evidence-based decisions are always better than guesswork.