Accountability
Medical Review Process
“Medically reviewed” is a badge that has been devalued by overuse, so it is worth being exact about what it means here. Corpus Atlas guides are currently checked by the editorial team against primary sources and national clinical guidance. Where a named clinician has signed off a page, that person is named on the page itself. Where no clinician is named, none has reviewed it — the page says so rather than implying otherwise.
Who reviews what
Editorial review — every page
The baseline, applied to everything published. The editorial team re-reads the guide against the primary literature and current national guidance, verifies each specific claim at its source, and re-assesses the evidence grades. This is a documentary check by trained non-clinicians, and it is described in exactly those terms on the page.
Named clinician sign-off — where a reviewer is listed
Where a page carries a named clinical reviewer, that person has read the guide in full and accepted accountability for its clinical accuracy. Their real credentials and a verifiable external profile appear on their contributor page. Corpus Atlas does not maintain a panel of physicians and does not claim one; the contributor register is the complete and honest list of who works on the site.
What a review actually involves
A review is a structured pass through the page, not a skim for tone. Five things are checked every time.
- 01
Every specific claim is traced back to its source
The reviewer works through the guide claim by claim. Numbers, thresholds and mechanisms are opened at the source and read, not accepted from the draft. A claim that cannot be traced to a named source is either rewritten to what the source supports, or cut.
- 02
Sources are checked for currency, not just existence
A citation that was correct three years ago is not automatically correct now. Guidelines are checked against their current published version, and superseded documents are replaced rather than left in place.
- 03
Evidence grades are re-argued
Each graded intervention is re-assessed against the four-level scale. Grades move both ways: an Emerging finding that has since replicated is promoted, and a Moderate claim that a newer systematic review has undercut is demoted.
- 04
Red flags and safety routing are verified
Every guide's 'when to seek care' section is checked against current national guidance, on the basis that this is the part of a health page most likely to change what a reader does next.
- 05
Scope is enforced
Anything that reads as diagnosis, prescription or personalised advice is removed. Corpus Atlas explains; it does not assess individuals.
What pages are checked against
Reviewers work down the same fixed order of authorities used when the guide was written, so a review can confirm or overturn the original judgement on the same basis.
- Cochrane Library
Systematic reviews — the highest tier of synthesised evidence.
- NICE Guidance
UK clinical guidelines and evidence summaries.
- NHS Health A to Z
Patient-facing clinical reference for UK practice.
- World Health Organization
Global public-health guidance and definitions.
- PubMed / MEDLINE
Primary peer-reviewed literature.
- National Institutes of Health
Office of Dietary Supplements fact sheets and NIH research summaries.
- American Heart Association
Cardiovascular guidelines and scientific statements.
How grades are assigned at review
The grade attached to an intervention is the reviewer’s summary of the underlying evidence base. These are the definitions applied.
- Strong
- Supported by multiple well-conducted randomised trials, systematic reviews or meta-analyses, and reflected in major clinical guidelines.
- Moderate
- Supported by consistent observational evidence or a smaller number of randomised trials; directionally reliable but with meaningful residual uncertainty.
- Emerging
- Early trials or strong mechanistic rationale, not yet replicated at scale. Plausible but not yet something to act on with confidence.
- Limited
- Weak, conflicting or largely preclinical evidence. Included for completeness, and explicitly flagged as not yet actionable.
How often review happens
Each section has a fixed maximum interval. A page is also pulled forward whenever major guidance changes, a cited paper is retracted, or a reader reports an error.
- Conditions and symptoms
- Reviewed every 12 months, or sooner when major guidance changes.
- Nutrients and supplements
- Reviewed every 12 months against current intake reference values.
- Body part and system guides
- Reviewed every 18 months; anatomy changes slowly, guidance does not.
- Exercises and technique guides
- Reviewed every 24 months.
- Calculators and tools
- Formulae verified against their source publication every 12 months.
The date of the last check appears on each guide, and is updated only when a real review took place — never on deploy.
What review does not do
Review makes a page accurate. It does not make it applicable to you. No amount of checking turns a general reference into an assessment of an individual, and nothing here has been reviewed with your history, medication or examination findings in front of the reviewer. The medical disclaimer sets out those limits in full, and the editorial policy covers the standards applied before a page reaches review.