Editorial Policy

Last updated April 21, 2026 · Edited by Margaret Halloran, PhD, RD, LDN

Every long-form piece on Clinical Nutrition Report passes through the four-stage review process documented below before it is published. We publish this policy because we want readers to be able to evaluate the editorial chain that produced the content they are reading, not just the content itself.

Four-stage review process

1. Stage 1 — Author drafts. The named author writes the first draft. The author must hold the appropriate credential for the subject matter (RD/RDN for clinical claims, MPH or equivalent for epidemiology summaries, CSSD for sport-nutrition specifics). Junior writers (DTR, dietetic interns) may draft beginner-level explainer content, but must have their work reviewed by a senior contributor.
2. Stage 2 — Senior reviewer. A senior reviewer with subject-matter authority in the relevant domain reads the draft for clinical accuracy and evidence grading. The senior reviewer for sport content is Daniel Okafor; for behavioral/ED-aware content, Lauren Westbrook; for epidemiology and research synthesis, Priya Krishnamurthy. The senior reviewer either approves, requests revisions, or rejects.
3. Stage 3 — Editor-in-Chief. All content is gated by the Editor-in-Chief (Margaret Halloran) before publication. This stage focuses on consistency with site methodology, conflict-of-interest review, and final fact-check. Halloran has signing authority on every page; her name does not appear on every byline, but her review does.
4. Stage 4 (conditional) — Advisory clinical review. Pieces that make explicit clinical recommendations affecting medication management (e.g., GLP-1 protein floors, medical nutrition therapy for type 2 diabetes, ketogenic protocols for refractory epilepsy) are escalated to an external advisory clinician for review. The advisory pool is intentionally small and is rebuilt annually; current members are not named on the public site to preserve their independence, but each review is logged internally with the reviewer's signed name. We disclose at the bottom of any escalated piece that an external clinical reviewer was involved.

Re-review cadence

Every long-form piece is reviewed for evidence currency at the 18-month mark, regardless of whether anything substantive has changed in the underlying literature. The reviewer at re-review is not necessarily the original author; we deliberately rotate so that fresh eyes can flag claims that have aged. Re-review either:

• Confirms the piece is still current and updates the "last reviewed" byline date with no other changes,
• Triggers a substantive update with a public note in the update log, or
• In rare cases, retires the piece. Retired content is replaced with a redirect to the closest current piece and a public note explaining why the original was retired.

Pieces that touch fast-moving categories (AI calorie tracking, GLP-1 nutrition support) are on a shorter cadence: 12 months for full re-review and quarterly spot-checks for pricing and feature changes.

Evidence grading

Every clinical claim in a long-form piece carries an evidence grade reflecting the highest tier of supporting evidence available. Our grading scale is documented in detail on the methodology page and follows a four-tier hierarchy from RCT/meta-analysis (highest) through prospective cohort, cross-sectional/case-control, to expert opinion or position statement (lowest).

We require that the wording of a claim match the evidence grade. RCT-supported findings are stated without hedge; cohort findings are described as associations rather than causes; cross-sectional data trigger explicit "may be associated" language; expert opinion is named as such. This is a hard editorial rule and applies regardless of how confident the contributor feels about the underlying claim.

Author credentials

Bylined authors on Clinical Nutrition Report must hold a credential appropriate to the subject matter they write about. Concretely:

• Clinical content (medical nutrition therapy, weight management, GLP-1 nutrition, eating-disorder-aware care) requires an RD or RDN credential.
• Sport and performance nutrition requires an RD plus CSSD or equivalent specialty certification.
• Epidemiology and research synthesis requires an MPH, MS in Epidemiology, PhD, or equivalent research-methods credential.
• Beginner-level explainer content may be drafted by a DTR or dietetic intern, but must be reviewed by a credentialed senior contributor before publication.

We do not accept anonymous or pseudonymous contributions. We do not buy bylined content from contractor pools. Every author has a profile page on our authors directory with credentials, alma mater, professional memberships, areas of focus, and conflict-of-interest disclosures.

Conflict of interest policy

Contributors must disclose, before publication of any content, any financial relationship with: app makers in our ranking universe; companies whose products are reviewed on this site; pharmaceutical manufacturers of medications discussed in the content (notably GLP-1 receptor agonists); supplement manufacturers; weight-loss or wellness program operators. Disclosure is annual and is renewed every January.

Where a disclosable relationship exists, the contributor recuses from any content that touches the affected company or category. Daniel Okafor, for example, has previously received honoraria from ISSN-affiliated continuing education events; he recuses from coverage of products affiliated with those vendors. Lauren Westbrook has publicly criticized engagement-loop design in several popular tracking apps; she recuses from reviews of those apps and that recusal is noted in the published piece.

Editorial leadership (Halloran, Krishnamurthy) hold no disclosable industry relationships. Their disclosures are renewed annually and posted on their author profile pages. Any change in disclosure status mid-cycle is disclosed within seven days on the relevant author profile and in the update log.

Sourcing standards

Primary sources are required for every numerical claim. Primary sources are: peer-reviewed publications in indexed journals; manufacturer label data; published USDA values; published clinical guidelines from issuing bodies (ADA, AHA, AND, ISSN, AACE). Secondary sources (other journalism, encyclopedia entries, vendor blog posts) may be used as orientation but cannot stand alone behind a numerical claim.

Citations are independently verified by Theodore Lindqvist (junior writer and fact-checker) before publication. If a citation cannot be verified, the underlying claim is removed from the piece, not retained with a weaker source.

Corrections

We correct errors visibly. The corrections process is documented in detail on our corrections page. Briefly: confirmed factual errors trigger a visible correction notice on the affected page within 72 hours, and a log entry on the corrections page. We do not silently edit. We do not memory-hole.

Editorial independence

The Editor-in-Chief is the final authority on what is published. No external party — including app makers, advertisers (we have none), or readers — may dictate editorial outcomes. Pre-publication outreach from companies seeking to influence rankings or reviews is logged and disclosed; the substance of the outreach does not affect the editorial decision.