Methods · Transparency
Citation verification protocol
Every plant entry on Myto Intelligence carries citations. This page explains how those citations are categorized, what each verification badge means, and what the dataset's current verification status is.
Educational use only. This page summarizes published research and traditional-use records for educational purposes. It does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Do not start, stop, or change medications based on this information. Discuss any decisions about therapies — pharmaceutical or botanical — with a qualified clinician who knows your medical history.
No PHI / HIPAA notice: Do not share Protected Health Information (PHI) of any patient on this site — including names, dates of birth, addresses, MRNs, or any identifying information. Use abstract case framing only. Sharing PHI with non-covered entities risks HIPAA violation regardless of platform capability.
Current dataset status
6298 citations across 590 plants
1901
PMID confirmed
30%
22
Cochrane reviews
0%
4357
Reference
69%
18
PMID pending
0%
100% of citations are PMID-confirmed, Cochrane-reviewed, or reference-grade verifiable. The remaining 0% are PubMed search-URL fallbacks where the paper is real and findable but the URL points to search results rather than to a single authoritative PubMed entry. Clinicians should verify any PMID-pending citation before relying on it for clinical decisions.
What each badge means
PMID confirmed
Citation URL points to a specific PubMed entry — directly verifiable on PubMed.
Cochrane review
Citation references a Cochrane systematic review — high-confidence evidence tier.
Reference
Reference-grade citation: textbook, WHO guideline, pre-PubMed paper, or Nobel-recognized work. Verifiable through the linked source.
PMID pending verification
Citation URL points to a PubMed search query rather than a specific PMID. The paper is real and findable, but the URL is one click weaker than a confirmed PMID. Clinicians should verify before relying on the citation for clinical decisions.
Dosing data · provenance
Where the dosing numbers come from
Dosing is shown as two independent lenses — what the market actually sells, next to what was actually studied — and the two are never blended into a recommendation. Every figure traces to one of the sources below, and each is labeled with its source on the plant page. Marketed amounts describe products; studied amounts are attributed to a specific trial or monograph; traditional amounts are historical records, not clinical evidence.
NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database (DSLD)
The per-serving amount marketed U.S. supplement products actually contain, summarized across every labeled product (median, typical range, by form, and common standardizations). Descriptive label data — what's sold, not what's advised.
ClinicalTrials.gov + curated trial literature
The dose each registered human trial used, lifted from the trial's own intervention record and attributed to its NCT id (or the study's PMID). A reference point, never a recommendation.
EMA & WHO herbal monographs
Posology from official European Union (EMA) and World Health Organization herbal monographs — the regulatory-grade reference for established and traditional herbal use, attributed and linked to the source monograph.
Herbal & ethnobotanical reference texts
Traditional preparation amounts from standard references (e.g. the Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine), tagged tier F — a historical record of how a plant has been prepared, shown separately from clinical evidence and never presented as proof.
Across 257 plants with studied/traditional dosing and 252 with marketed-serving data. None of it is medical advice — what you take is a decision for you and your clinician.
Protocol going forward
How new citations get added
As the dataset grows from primary sources stored in the Phyto+Fungi Knowledge Base, every new citation must satisfy one of these standards:
- 1.Specific PMID URL. The preferred standard.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/[PMID]/— directly verifiable on PubMed. - 2.Cochrane Library URL. For Cochrane systematic reviews; Cochrane-grade evidence is its own first-class citation type.
- 3.Reference URL. For WHO guidelines, FDA documents, textbook references, pre-PubMed papers, and Nobel-recognized work where a stable canonical URL exists.
- 4.PMID-pending fallback. When the specific PMID isn't immediately known, a PubMed search URL with author + topic terms is acceptable temporarily. These entries are flagged as "PMID pending" and queued for a future verification pass.
What this means in practice
The papers themselves are real. Every citation references a paper that exists in the literature. Author names, journal names, years, and titles are accurate based on the original primary-source documents.
The verification badge tells you whether the URL is one click away from the paper (PMID confirmed) or two clicks away through PubMed search (PMID pending). Both resolve to real research; the badge tracks rigor, not validity.
For high-stakes clinical decisions: independently verify any citation you're relying on. This is true for any reference tool — PubMed-confirmed or otherwise.
This dataset is in invite-only research preview. Public launch is gated on completion of citation verification (replacing all PMID-pending entries with confirmed PMIDs) and FDA / FTC-experienced legal review of the result-page template.