Methodology
How we rate.
Every protocol carries two readings: where its evidence comes from, and how strong that evidence is. Bands are coarse and unranked by design — we do not pretend to a precision the evidence cannot support.
Two readings sit behind every protocol we publish: where its evidence comes from, and how strong that evidence is. We keep the two separate on purpose. A long tradition of use is not the same as a randomized trial, and the page should never let one be mistaken for the other.
The first reading: where the evidence comes from
Every protocol carries one provenance tier. The tier sets the ceiling on how plainly we are willing to speak, so the language you read is tied to the evidence behind it rather than to our enthusiasm.
- Foundational — supported by human randomized trials and consistent review. Here we may say studies suggest a finding, or that the evidence is consistent with it — still conditional, never stated as settled fact.
- Emerging — meaningful but not yet replicated at the same standard. Here the strongest phrasing we allow is that early evidence suggests a finding; firmer wording is withheld pending counsel review.
- Community — reported in practice ahead of the formal literature. Here we report only that proponents describe a practice, and note plainly that it is not yet established.
The second reading: four published bands
Every protocol carries four readings, each a single named band drawn from a fixed set of four. These are what you see on the page. The bands are coarse and unranked by design — we do not pretend to a precision the evidence cannot support. There is no numeric score, no leaderboard, no “rated” ordering, and no sub-band sorting. A band moves only when the underlying evidence, tolerability, price, or upkeep changes enough to cross a threshold we can defend in writing.
Evidence
How strong and how consistent the published research is, read against the GRADE and CEBM certainty-of-evidence framework rather than against marketing. The band reflects the body of work, not a single study — and it is the visible result of the deeper reading set out below.
- Strong
- Moderate
- Limited
- Insufficient
Safety
A caution-only reading of reported tolerability. The band names a level of concern to look into; it never affirms that a protocol is without risk. Discuss anything you are considering with your physician before beginning a regimen.
- Low concern
- Moderate concern
- Elevated concern
- Significant concern
Cost
What the protocol asks of your budget, read in relative terms against the others we review.
- Low
- Moderate
- Notable
- High
Effort
What the protocol asks of your week — preparation, timing, and the discipline needed to sustain the practice.
- Low
- Moderate
- Notable
- High
What sits behind the evidence reading
A single band is easy to wave away until you see what it is built from. The evidence reading is not one judgment but several, weighed together and written down so the result can be retraced.
- Consistency & replication — whether independent studies, in more than one population, point the same way, or whether a claim rests on a single result.
- Effect size — whether the benefit is large enough to matter in a life, not merely large enough to reach statistical significance.
- Directness — whether the work was done in people like you, on outcomes you would care about, rather than in animals or on surrogate markers read across to humans.
- Source independence — who paid for the work. Research funded by a party that profits from the result is weighed with more caution and noted as such; we give the most weight to work with no commercial stake in its outcome. Funding is a bias to account for, not proof that any one study is wrong.
- Risk of bias — how the study was built: randomization, blinding, size, dropout, and whether it was pre-registered — read the way an appraiser reads them, not the way an abstract advertises them.
How a reading is made
Behind each rating is a structured, repeatable review. Every study we cite is read in full and graded against the same rubric; the criteria above are weighed together, conflicts of interest accounted for, and the result distilled into the coarse bands you see. The same protocol, read by us on two different days, should land in the same place.
We publish the criteria and the proof. How we weigh them — the rubric we have built, and keep refining as the literature moves — is our own work. That weighing is the part we bring; the studies belong to everyone.
Read together, the provenance tier, the four published bands, and the reading behind them let you retrace any rating for yourself. The judgment is ours; the evidence is in plain sight.
Where we stand
No one pays us to change a rating. Our ratings are funded by subscription, never by the makers of what we rate — so the reading you see is the reading we stand behind. If we cannot cite it, we do not say it.
Where a protocol calls for a product, we point only to makers that clear a high bar for quality — independent third-party testing, honest labels, and nothing we would not keep in our own cabinet. Some of those links may earn us a commission; we disclose it plainly, and it never moves a rating. We would sooner recommend nothing than recommend something we have not scrutinized.
Rated under methodology rubric-v1. Pending health-tech attorney review.
Direct answers
- Does Temple Protocol prescribe protocols?
- No. Temple Protocol rates protocols against published evidence and shows the proof. It does not diagnose, prescribe, or replace a clinician.
- What does a Temple Protocol rating include?
- Each protocol carries provenance plus four visible readings: evidence, safety, cost, and effort. The bands are coarse and unranked.
- What sits behind the evidence reading?
- Consistency and replication, effect size, directness, source independence, and risk of bias are weighed against GRADE and CEBM-style evidence standards.
- Does Temple Protocol sell supplements?
- No. Temple Protocol does not sell supplements or compounds; the methodology separates editorial judgment from commercial incentives.