We cite every claim.

Primary data sources

NIH Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS)

The NIH ODS publishes fact sheets for every commonly-consumed vitamin, mineral, and botanical. Each fact sheet includes absorption characteristics, Tolerable Upper Intake Levels where established, common interactions, and population-specific considerations. These fact sheets are the primary source for VitAmizeMe's nutrient model.

Reference: ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/list-all/

National Academies Dietary Reference Intakes

The Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) are developed by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The reports define RDA, AI, EAR, and UL values for essentially every nutrient with sufficient evidence, stratified by life stage. These are the values VitAmizeMe uses for threshold evaluation.

Reference: DRI: Recommended Dietary Allowances and Adequate Intakes, Vitamins

FDA guidance

Where applicable (especially for daily-value conventions used on nutrition labels), VitAmizeMe uses FDA guidance to ensure the app's interpretations align with the way labels are written.

Interaction rules

Interactions between supplements, and between supplements and medications, are modeled as rules in a JSON file that ships with the app (and can be updated without redeployment). Each rule contains:

• The involved nutrients and/or medications
• The interaction type (absorption conflict, competitive uptake, enzyme induction, synergistic, etc.)
• A severity tier: low, medium, high, or critical
• A citation URL pointing to the NIH fact sheet, peer-reviewed study, or FDA label that substantiates the claim
• Human-readable recommendation text
• An optional spacing interval (e.g., "space by 2 hours")

Rules are added only when there is a citable source. No rule is added because "we've heard it's a problem."

What VitAmizeMe does not claim

• Not medical advice. VitAmizeMe is a safety-monitoring tool. It does not diagnose, treat, or prescribe.
• Not a substitute for a clinician. If you have a condition, take medications, or are pregnant, a healthcare provider's judgment supersedes any number the app produces.
• Not a therapeutic recommender. The app will not tell you to "take X for Y." It will tell you when what you're already taking approaches or exceeds an established threshold.
• Not a diagnostic tool. A risk score is situational awareness, not a diagnosis. A "high" score indicates intake exceeds a reference threshold, not that harm has occurred.

Limits of the model

Every model has limits. VitAmizeMe's notable ones:

• UL is not a bright line. Upper Limits are conservative thresholds for avoiding harm in a general population. Individual tolerance varies. The Index does not account for genetic polymorphisms, individual absorption differences, or therapeutic doses prescribed by a clinician.
• Barcode data is user-verified. Product information is sourced from OpenFoodFacts, which is community-maintained. We require user verification before saving, because label data can be wrong or outdated.
• Interactions are known-knowns. Our rule base reflects what the literature and fact sheets have documented. Supplements are under-studied compared to pharmaceuticals; the absence of a rule is not evidence of safety.