One of the quickest ways to make a health product feel authoritative is to state figures. Thresholds, targets, percentages — they read as expertise. They are also the easiest thing in the entire field to get wrong, because a figure that was correct in one guideline, in one country, in one year, is often quietly superseded.
The rule
Where we state an internationally agreed figure we name who published it and when. Where we have no reliable attribution, we do not state it. There is no third option in which we say it anyway because it is probably right.
What this removes
- Confident generalities. “Most people should aim for…” is unattributable and therefore does not appear.
- Inherited thresholds. Guidance changes. A figure stated without a date cannot be checked against the version that replaced it.
- Invented precision. A number is not more trustworthy for having a decimal point.
Why dates matter as much as sources
Naming a body is only half of an attribution. Cholesterol classification is a good example: the bands most laboratories still print come from a panel published in 2001, while how those numbers are used to decide treatment was substantially revised in 2018. Stating the source without the year lets a reader assume the figure is current when it may be describing a framework that has moved.
The quiet benefit
A product that only states what it can attribute ends up saying less, and what remains is checkable. For a health company that is the right trade. Anyone can verify where our figures came from, which is the only basis on which anyone should trust them.
This article explains how our technology works. It is health information, not medical advice.