"Clinically studied" is one of the most common phrases on a supplement label, and one of the most slippery. A study can be real, published, and rigorous — and still have used a dose that has little to do with what's in the product you're holding.
The research used three to five grams a day. Some labels sprinkle a fraction of that and borrow the science anyway.
What this check compares
LookCloser lines up the label's stated per-serving amount against the range of doses that published research actually used. It answers one narrow question: are the label and the literature talking about the same numbers?
A match doesn't prove the product works. A mismatch doesn't prove it's useless. It shows whether the claimed benefit is being supported by evidence at a comparable dose — or whether the science is being cited for a dose it never tested.
The two honest complications
Daily intake versus intervention dose
For minerals like magnesium and zinc, the numbers you'll see quoted (the RDA, the upper limit) are daily intake references, not intervention doses from a trial. A single serving of an electrolyte drink isn't trying to deliver a full day's magnesium, so "below the daily reference" is context, not a shortfall. We label these differently.
Form and standardization
Botanical extracts are dosed by standardization, not raw weight. "500 mg of tongkat ali" means little without the extract ratio. A raw-powder milligram figure is not comparable to a standardized-extract dose used in studies — so when the label doesn't state the standardization, the comparison can't be made honestly, and we say so.
Sources we compare against
- NIH Office of Dietary Supplements fact sheets
- Position stands and systematic reviews indexed on PubMed
- Registered trials on ClinicalTrials.gov
See this check on a real product.
Every LookCloser record runs this check with named, dated public sources — and shows the gaps too.