You saw a health claim. Now what?
Say a friend sends you a post that claims a supplement “cuts your risk of heart disease in half.” Or a headline says “New study finds…” with no link to the actual study. Before you believe it, share it, or bring it up with your doctor, it helps to trace the claim back to where it actually came from. This guide walks through how to do that, step by step, using the same questions health librarians and researchers use.
Stage 1: Figure out what kind of source you’re looking at
Not every source is the same distance from the original evidence. Before you dig further, sort what you’re reading into one of these groups:
- A primary source. This is the original research study, clinical guideline, or government health page. It’s written by the people who did the work or the agency responsible for the guidance.
- A retelling. This is a news article, blog post, or social media caption describing what a study or agency said. It’s one step removed from the original.
- A retelling of a retelling. This happens when a post summarizes an article that summarized a study. Details get simplified, dropped, or changed at each step.
The claim you saw is almost always in the second or third group. Your job is to work backward toward the first.
Stage 2: Look for the trail
Most retellings leave clues about where they got their information, even when they don’t link to it directly. Look for:
- A hyperlink on words like “a new study,” “according to research,” or “the CDC says”
- The name of a journal, university, government agency, or health organization
- A researcher’s name or a publication date you can search
If none of these exist, that’s already useful information. A health claim with no traceable source is a claim you can’t verify, and according to MedlinePlus, content pages that offer real information should include links or references back to where the information came from.
Stage 3: Confirm you’ve actually reached the source
Once you find a named source, don’t stop there — confirm it’s trustworthy before treating it as reliable. MedlinePlus recommends asking:
- Who runs it? Federal agencies, medical schools, and large professional or nonprofit health organizations are generally reliable. A site’s “About Us” page usually says who’s behind it.
- What’s the purpose? Is the goal to inform the public, or to sell something or promote an opinion?
- Who pays for it? If a business funds the page, the information may favor that business’s products.
- Is it reviewed and dated? Trustworthy pages show when the content was written or last updated, and ideally describe how it’s reviewed for accuracy.
If the “source” you landed on is itself another news article or opinion piece, you haven’t reached the original yet — go back to Stage 2 and keep following the trail.
Stage 4: If the source is a scientific journal article, know its parts
Sometimes the trail leads to an actual research study. These articles follow a predictable structure, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH):
- Abstract. A short summary near the top that covers the objectives (what question the researchers asked), the methods (how they studied it), the results (what they found), and the discussion or conclusion (what the results might mean).
- Methods, Results, Discussion/Conclusion, and References. These make up the body of the article, with the full details behind the summary in the abstract.
You don’t need to read the entire study to get useful context. Reading just the abstract, and checking the publication date, tells you what question was studied and how recent the evidence is. NCCIH notes that newer research can support, refine, or sometimes contradict older findings, which is a normal part of how science corrects itself over time — not a sign that something was “wrong” before.
Warning signs you haven’t reached a real source
- The page says “studies show” or “experts agree” without naming which studies or which experts
- You can’t find who runs the site or who wrote the piece
- The page is designed to sell a product, and the claim happens to support that product
- There’s no date, or the date is much older than the claim suggests
- Every link you click leads to another summary, never to the original agency, journal, or dataset
A simple decision path
- Read the claim. Note the exact wording — vague claims (“may help”) are different from strong ones (“cuts risk in half”).
- Look for a named, linked, or citable source in the piece.
- Follow that source. If it’s another retelling, repeat this step.
- When you reach a named organization or study, check who runs it, who funds it, and whether it’s dated and reviewed.
- If it’s a journal article, skim the abstract for the question asked, the study type, and the date.
- Bring what you found to your health care provider before making any decisions based on it. As MedlinePlus puts it, you may have found good information, but your provider can tell you whether it applies to your specific situation.
What this checklist can’t tell you
Tracing a claim to its source tells you where the information came from and how credible that source generally is. It doesn’t tell you whether a specific treatment, supplement, or approach is right for you. Study results can be preliminary, apply to a different population than you, or be one piece of a larger, mixed body of evidence. Use source-tracing as a first filter, not a final answer — and talk with a health care provider about what any specific finding might mean for your own health.
This article is for general educational purposes and does not replace individualized medical advice. If you have questions about a specific health claim or condition, talk with a qualified health care provider. For more on our approach to sourcing, see How We Research. New to this topic? Start with Start Here.
By Everyday Prevention Evidence Editorial Team
Last updated: September 9, 2026
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