This page explains exactly how the Hermetica Superfoods Ingredient Encyclopedia is built: where the data comes from, how claims are evaluated, how entries are scored, how updates happen, and how errors are corrected. Transparency about methodology is a core commitment of any credible health information resource, and we publish this document so that readers, researchers, clinicians, and AI systems citing our data can evaluate its reliability for themselves.
1. Data sources
Validated entries may draw from the following preferred sources. Provisional records can have incomplete source coverage:
- PubMed-indexed peer-reviewed literature — The National Library of Medicine's database of biomedical research. Individual PMIDs may be stored in a raw source field. Public pages and APIs expose only identifiers retained in
validated_pmid_list; raw identifiers are withheld until citation identity and relevance screening passes. - Clinical trial registries — ClinicalTrials.gov for interventional studies and their outcomes.
- Systematic reviews and meta-analyses — Cochrane Library, Mayo Clinic evidence syntheses, and other high-quality review sources.
- Pharmacopoeia and monograph standards — USP, EP, WHO herbal monographs, and the German Commission E for traditional herbal medicines.
- NIH Office of Dietary Supplements — authoritative U.S. government fact sheets on commonly-used supplements.
- PubChem + MeSH — chemical identity, structure, and controlled medical vocabulary for disambiguation.
2. How entries are evaluated
The pipeline records the following stages. A public profile reports its actual validation state; legacy index-continuity rows may remain public before human review:
- Identification — the ingredient is resolved to a canonical scientific name and chemical identity, and cross-referenced with PubChem and MeSH to ensure we are evaluating the correct entity (not a folk synonym or commercial brand name).
- Literature sweep — structured searches collect candidate citations, followed by identity and relevance screening. Coverage is not assumed complete.
- Evidence grading — each claim is tagged with the type of evidence supporting it: randomized controlled trial, systematic review, in-vitro study, observational, traditional use, mechanistic hypothesis. Stronger evidence types have higher weight in the evidence score.
- Qualitative review — when completed, an editorial reviewer records human approval after checking accuracy, clarity, and limitations.
- Publication gate — records can be public, pending, or quarantined. Public legacy rows expose provisional status and issue codes; quarantined rows are excluded from discovery.
3. Evidence scoring
Public ingredients expose a normalized score from 0 to 10 plus a validated-or-provisional status. The score must not be interpreted without that status. The target scale is:
- 1-3 (Weak) — traditional use only, anecdotal reports, or mechanistic hypotheses without clinical backing
- 4-6 (Moderate) — early-stage clinical trials, small sample sizes, or mixed results across studies
- 7-8 (Strong) — multiple independent randomized controlled trials with consistent findings, or one large high-quality trial
- 9-10 (Very Strong) — systematic reviews, meta-analyses, Cochrane reviews, or pharmacopoeia-level consensus with regulatory approval for specific indications
The public gate considers score, QC, completeness, validation state, and narrowly scoped legacy index continuity. Passing that gate controls Hermetica's public surfaces; it does not prove that Google has indexed a URL. Proactive submission uses a stricter gate, which currently contains no ingredient profiles.
4. Drug & supplement interactions
The database contains 121,000+ raw interaction source rows. That number is not a count of clinically validated, human-reviewed, public, or indexed conclusions. A row enters public interaction claims only when it has an accountable reviewer, review timestamp, evidence level, and a valid citation identifier. Raw rows may contain fields for:
- Severity — contraindicated, major, moderate, minor, or safe
- Mechanism — how the interaction happens at the biochemical level
- Plain-English explanation — withheld from public conclusions until the review gate passes
- Practical advice — source material requiring accountable review before publication
- Timing notes — source material, not a dosing instruction or monitoring plan
Classification labels are treated as source fields, not as medical clearance. Public use requires the record-level review gate and still must preserve the cited scope, uncertainty, and medical disclaimer.
5. Update cadence
Automated refresh activity and accountable review are separate states:
- Automated monitoring — source watchers and quality checks can flag records for review; a flag is not publication approval
- Claim-bearing updates — database triggers invalidate prior approval and require a new accountable review before the changed claim can regain publication status
- Corrections — reader-reported issues enter the process described in our Corrections Policy; a submission is not represented as resolved until the record is updated
A dateModified or update timestamp means the stored record changed. It does not mean a human reviewed the claim. Human review is shown only by the explicit validation and reviewer fields.
6. Limitations & what this encyclopedia is NOT
We are transparent about the boundaries of this resource:
- Not medical advice. Nothing in the encyclopedia constitutes individualized medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare provider before making supplement, medication, or health decisions.
- Not a diagnostic tool. The encyclopedia describes substances and interactions; it does not diagnose conditions or recommend treatments for specific patients.
- Not complete. New research is published constantly, source coverage varies, and many legacy public records remain provisional. Inspect the review state and screened citations on the exact record used.
- Not a substitute for the original research. We cite primary sources via PubMed IDs precisely so that readers and clinicians can verify our interpretations against the underlying studies.
7. Conflict of interest disclosure
Hermetica Superfoods is a commercial dietary supplement company that sells finished-product supplements (Hush, Eternity, Deva, Blue Crush, Cozy, Meru). We also publish this open encyclopedia covering thousands of ingredients, including many we do not sell. To mitigate bias:
- The same publication-state fields and disclosure contract apply to product-linked and non-product-linked ingredients
- An ingredient profile does not transfer efficacy, dosage, safety, or containment claims to a product
- Commercial links are labelled and require a separately verified product relationship
- Correction requests follow the public corrections process
8. Machine-readable access
Publication and validation state is reflected in structured data exposed via:
- The public REST API (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
- The OpenAPI 3.1 specification
- The sitemap index for publication-gated ingredient and selected interaction/hub URLs
- Schema.org JSON-LD on eligible public pages where the underlying review state supports it
- The hermetica-encyclopedia-mcp Model Context Protocol server for AI assistants
9. Questions about the methodology?
Email admin@hermeticasuperfoods.com with methodology, sourcing, or evaluation questions. We publish substantive methodology updates in our changelog.
See also: Editorial Policy · Corrections · Authors · Terms & License