Sources and Further Reading

Every chapter carries its own "Sources and notes" section, naming the specific trials, agencies, and papers behind that chapter's claims, plus an "Open questions" paragraph flagging what is genuinely unsettled. Go there first for anything specific.

This page collects the authoritative sources worth going to directly, organised by what you might want to look up, and lists the works that recur across many chapters.

A note on how to use this list. The organisations below publish their reasoning, not just their conclusions, and reading a regulatory assessment or a Cochrane plain-language summary is usually more informative than any secondary reporting of it.

Food composition and nutrition data

• USDA FoodData Central: the standard food composition database. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/
• McCance and Widdowson's The Composition of Foods: the UK equivalent, published by Public Health England.
• EFSA (European Food Safety Authority): scientific opinions on additives, contaminants, novel foods, and dietary reference values. https://www.efsa.europa.eu/
• NHS Eatwell Guide and Live Well pages: the UK's practical dietary guidance. https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/
• Dietary Guidelines for Americans: https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/
• WHO nutrition guidelines, including the free sugars, sodium, and non-sugar sweetener recommendations. https://www.who.int/health-topics/nutrition

Farming, production, and food systems

• FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organization) and FAOSTAT: global production statistics for every crop mentioned in this book. https://www.fao.org/faostat/
• Poore, J. and Nemecek, T. (2018), "Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers," Science: the source of the environmental footprint comparisons.
• Our World in Data: Food and Agriculture: well-sourced accessible analysis. https://ourworldindata.org/food-agriculture
• Wu, G.A. et al. (2018), "Genomics of the origin and evolution of Citrus," Nature.
• Cornille, A. et al. (2012) on apple domestication, PLoS Genetics.
• Powell, A.L.T. et al. (2012), "Uniform ripening encodes a Golden 2-like transcription factor," Science: why supermarket tomatoes are bland.
• Seufert, V., Ramankutty, N. and Foley, J.A. (2012), "Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture," Nature.
• Barański, M. et al. (2014), organic crop composition meta-analysis, British Journal of Nutrition.

Nutrition evidence

• Aune, D. et al. (2017), fruit and vegetable intake dose-response meta-analysis, International Journal of Epidemiology.
• Aune, D. et al. (2016), whole grain intake and mortality, BMJ.
• Reynolds, A. et al. (2019), "Carbohydrate quality and human health," The Lancet: the WHO commissioned fibre review.
• Estruch, R. et al. (2018), PREDIMED, New England Journal of Medicine.
• Hall, K.D. et al. (2019), ultra-processed diet metabolic ward trial, Cell Metabolism.
• Zeevi, D. et al. (2015), personalised glycaemic responses, Cell.
• Muraki, I. et al. (2013), fruit and fruit juice and type 2 diabetes, BMJ.
• Wastyk, H.C. et al. (2021), fermented food and microbiome diversity, Cell.
• Sacks, F.M. et al. (2001), DASH-Sodium, New England Journal of Medicine.
• Neal, B. et al. (2021), SSaSS salt substitute trial, New England Journal of Medicine.
• Neelakantan, N. et al. (2020), coconut oil and lipids meta-analysis, Circulation.
• Baer, D.J. et al., metabolisable energy of nuts, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
• Morris, M.C. et al. (2018), green leafy vegetables and cognitive decline, Neurology.
• Holt, S.H. et al. (1995), the satiety index, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
• Lean, M.E.J. et al. (2018), DiRECT diabetes remission trial, The Lancet.

Medicines: reference sources

• British National Formulary (BNF): the UK prescribing reference, and the single best source for doses, interactions, and cautions. https://bnf.nice.org.uk/
• electronic Medicines Compendium (emc): every UK product's Summary of Product Characteristics and patient leaflet. https://www.medicines.org.uk/
• DailyMed (US): the FDA equivalent. https://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/
• NICE guidance: UK clinical guidelines. https://www.nice.org.uk/
• Cochrane Library: systematic reviews with plain-language summaries. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/
• LactMed: drugs and breastfeeding. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK501922/
• UK Teratology Information Service (UKTIS) / bumps: medicines in pregnancy. https://www.medicinesinpregnancy.org/
• LiverTox: drug-induced liver injury, including herbals and supplements. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK547852/

Medicines: named studies discussed

• Cipriani, A. et al. (2018), antidepressant network meta-analysis, The Lancet.
• Moncrieff, J. et al. (2022), serotonin theory of depression umbrella review, Molecular Psychiatry.
• Wood, F.A. et al. (2020), SAMSON n-of-1 statin trial, New England Journal of Medicine.
• Cholesterol Treatment Trialists' Collaboration meta-analyses, The Lancet.
• McNeil, J.J. et al. (2018), ASPREE aspirin primary prevention, New England Journal of Medicine; and the ARRIVE and ASCEND trials in the same year.
• Krebs, E.E. et al. (2018), SPACE opioid trial, JAMA.
• Llewelyn, M.J. et al. (2017), "The antibiotic course has had its day," BMJ.
• Lincoff, A.M. et al. (2023), SELECT semaglutide cardiovascular trial, New England Journal of Medicine.
• Wilding, J.P.H. et al. (2021), STEP 1 semaglutide weight trial, New England Journal of Medicine.
• Hajek, P. et al. (2019), e-cigarettes versus NRT, New England Journal of Medicine.
• Du Toit, G. et al. (2015), LEAP peanut allergy trial, New England Journal of Medicine.
• RECOVERY Collaborative Group (2021), dexamethasone in COVID-19, New England Journal of Medicine.
• Writing Group for the Women's Health Initiative (2002), JAMA, and the subsequent timing-hypothesis literature.

Toxicology, chemicals, and risk

• IARC Monographs: cancer hazard classifications, with the full reasoning. https://monographs.iarc.who.int/
• JECFA (FAO/WHO Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives): the risk-assessment counterpart to IARC.
• EFSA opinions on aspartame, BPA, titanium dioxide, acrylamide, and contaminants.
• US FDA: sunscreen absorption studies, additive assessments, and safety communications. https://www.fda.gov/
• UK Food Standards Agency: acrylamide ("Go for Gold"), allergen labelling, and food safety advice. https://www.food.gov.uk/
• ATSDR Toxicological Profiles: lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, PFAS. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/
• C8 Science Panel: the PFAS health studies. http://www.c8sciencepanel.org/
• WHO air quality guidelines (2021). https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240034228
• Nutt, D.J., King, L.A. and Phillips, L.D. (2010), "Drug harms in the UK," The Lancet.

Vaccines and infectious disease

• WHO Immunization and the Green Book (UK: Immunisation against infectious disease).
• CDC Vaccine Information Statements and the Pink Book.
• Taylor, L.E., Swerdfeger, A.L. and Eslick, G.D. (2014), vaccines and autism meta-analysis, Vaccine; and Hviid, A. et al. (2019), the Danish cohort, Annals of Internal Medicine.
• Deer, B. (2011), the BMJ investigation into the Wakefield paper.
• Falcaro, M. et al. (2021), HPV vaccination and cervical cancer in England, The Lancet.
• Murray, C.J.L. et al. (2022), global burden of antimicrobial resistance, The Lancet.

Evaluating evidence

• Goldacre, B., Bad Science and Bad Pharma: the best introduction to how health claims go wrong.
• Spiegelhalter, D., The Art of Statistics: how to read numbers in health reporting.
• Ioannidis, J.P.A. (2005), "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False," PLoS Medicine.
• Schoenfeld, J.D. and Ioannidis, J.P.A. (2013), "Is everything we eat associated with cancer?", American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
• Sumner, P. et al. (2014), exaggeration in health news and its origin in press releases, BMJ.
• NHS Behind the Headlines archive: case-by-case analysis of health stories.
• Science Media Centre: expert reactions to new studies. https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/

Books worth reading

• McGee, H., On Food and Cooking: the standard reference on food science and the source of much of the kitchen chemistry in this book.
• Wrangham, R., Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.
• Pollan, M., The Omnivore's Dilemma: on food systems, with the usual caveats about its nutritional claims.
• Spector, T., Spoon-Fed: on nutrition evidence and its limits.
• van Tulleken, C., Ultra-Processed People: a thorough and pointed account of the UPF argument.
• Mukherjee, S., The Emperor of All Maladies: for context on cancer risk.
• Rutter, M. and colleagues, and the wider evidence-based medicine literature.
• Le Fanu, J., The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine: a sceptical history.

Where to get help

A closing note on sources

Everything in this book was true, to the best of the available evidence, at the time of writing. Some of it will not be in ten years. Nutrition and toxicology are both fields where the evidence genuinely moves, and several positions in this book (aspirin for primary prevention, HRT, dietary cholesterol, gluten sensitivity, the antibiotic course, early allergen introduction) reversed within the professional lifetime of people still practising.

That is not a weakness of the science. It is the science working. The right response to a field that updates is to prefer the sources that show their reasoning, to weight systematic reviews over single studies, and to be most suspicious of whoever is most certain.

👉 Back to the playbook, or the glossary.