Editorial Sources

The content below is the authoritative list of publications, regulatory bodies, and retailers GFC draws from. If a source is not on this list, it is not used.

GFC publishes this for two reasons. First, transparency: anyone reading a GFC article should be able to see exactly where our facts come from and judge the quality of those sources for themselves. Second, discipline: a fixed source list is the simplest way to prevent the slow drift toward lower-quality citations that happens when no one is watching.

Tier A: Regulatory and scientific authorities

The primary sources of truth for drug approvals, health claims, clinical guidelines, and nutrition science at the EU and international level.

European Medicines Agency (EMA) — drug approvals, safety updates, and assessment reports for medicines authorized for use in the European Union. Used for all GLP-1 medication facts (semaglutide, tirzepatide, liraglutide, oral semaglutide).

European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) — scientific opinions on food, nutrition, and health claims.

Note: EFSA's main site frequently blocks automated requests with 403 errors. The EFSA Journal is officially hosted on Wiley Online Library at the second URL. Both contain the same authoritative content; the Wiley mirror is the practical access point for fetching EFSA opinions.

EUR-Lex — official journal of the European Union. The source for Commission Regulations, including the regulations that authorize EFSA health claims.

World Health Organization (WHO) — global health guidance, including dietary fiber recommendations and obesity classifications.

Cochrane Library — systematic reviews of clinical evidence. Used for evidence synthesis on fiber, GLP-1 medications, and related health interventions.

Tier B: Medical and scientific publications

Peer-reviewed journals and reputable medical press used for clinical evidence, study reporting, and contextual coverage of regulatory developments. We start with a tight list and expand only when a specific need is documented.

Peer-reviewed journals:

Medical and pharmaceutical press:

Anything fetched from a Tier B source must be cross-referenced against a Tier A source before being stated as fact in a GFC article. Tier B is used to find and contextualize developments; Tier A is used to confirm them.

Country sources

Each country section lists the national regulatory bodies, dietary authorities, and reputable national medical press for that market. When writing country-specific content, these are the only national sources permitted.

Germany (DE)

Regulatory and dietary authorities:

  • Bundesinstitut für Arzneimittel und Medizinprodukte (BfArM) — bfarm.de
  • Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss (G-BA) — g-ba.de
  • Bundesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit (BVL) — bvl.bund.de
  • Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ernährung (DGE) — dge.de
  • Robert Koch-Institut (RKI) — rki.de

National medical press:

Spain (ES)

Regulatory and dietary authorities:

  • Agencia Española de Medicamentos y Productos Sanitarios (AEMPS) — aemps.gob.es
  • Agencia Española de Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (AESAN) — aesan.gob.es
  • Ministerio de Sanidad — sanidad.gob.es

National medical press:

France (FR)

Regulatory and dietary authorities:

  • Agence nationale de sécurité du médicament et des produits de santé (ANSM) — ansm.sante.fr
  • Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) — has-sante.fr
  • Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l'alimentation, de l'environnement et du travail (ANSES) — anses.fr
  • Direction Générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des Fraudes (DGCCRF) — economie.gouv.fr/dgccrf

National medical press:

United Kingdom (UK)

Regulatory and dietary authorities:

National medical press:

Netherlands (NL)

Regulatory and dietary authorities:

National medical press:

  • Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde — ntvg.nl
  • Pharmaceutisch Weekblad — pw.nl

United States (US)

The US has a structurally different regulatory environment from the European markets. The FDA replaces both EMA (drug approvals) and EFSA (food and health claims), and there is no single national dietary authority equivalent to DGE or ANSES; instead, dietary guidance is issued jointly by USDA and HHS.

Regulatory and dietary authorities:

National medical press:

Australia (AU)

Regulatory and dietary authorities:

National medical press:

Canada (CA)

Regulatory and dietary authorities:

National medical press:

  • Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) — cmaj.ca

Sweden (SE)

Regulatory and dietary authorities:

National medical press:

Denmark (DK)

Regulatory and dietary authorities:

National medical press:

Norway (NO)

Regulatory and dietary authorities:

National medical press:

Finland (FI)

Regulatory and dietary authorities:

  • Lääkealan turvallisuus- ja kehittämiskeskus (Fimea) — fimea.fi
  • Terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin laitos (THL) — thl.fi
  • Ruokavirasto (Finnish Food Authority) — ruokavirasto.fi
  • Valtion ravitsemusneuvottelukunta (National Nutrition Council) — ruokavirasto.fi/vrn
  • Nordic Nutrition Recommendations (NNR), shared regional guidelines — nordicnutrition.no

National medical press:

Product links and retailer information

Product recommendations and retailer information operate under different rules than editorial facts, because retailer pages change constantly and the failure mode is different.

Commercial sources are not yet approved. GFC has not yet built its commercial source verification system. Until that system is in place, no general retailer (dm, Rossmann, Mercadona, Boots, Holland & Barrett, Bol.com, or any other) is approved as a source for product availability, pricing, or product links. Articles that need product recommendations are written without specific retailer claims, or they wait for the commercial source system to ship.

Amazon is permitted under one strict rule, with one fallback.

The strict rule for Amazon product links: A direct Amazon product link (the kind containing an ASIN, e.g. amazon.de/dp/B08XYZ1234) may only be published if the exact URL was successfully fetched during the writing of the article and the fetch returned a live, in-stock product matching what the article is recommending. No fetch, no link. ASINs may not be constructed from memory, copied from third-party review sites, or generated based on what an Amazon URL "should" look like. The ASIN must come from a successful fetch within the current task.

The fallback for when ASIN verification fails: If the strict rule cannot be satisfied (the product page returned an error, the listing changed, the product is out of stock, or no specific product has been verified), the article uses an Amazon search URL instead. Search URLs are constructed from a query string, not from a database identifier, and they are guaranteed to work regardless of inventory state. The pattern is amazon.[tld]/s?k=[query], for example amazon.de/s?k=chicory+inulin+powder. Search URLs may always be used in place of product links.

The combination of these two rules means that every GFC Amazon link is either verified-live or search-based. A broken or fabricated Amazon link cannot make it onto the site.

How the source list is maintained

This document is updated when a new market is added to GFC's content footprint, when a regulatory body is renamed or restructured, or when an existing source ceases to meet the editorial standard. Changes are made by editing GFC_Editorial_Sources.md directly and committing the change with a note explaining what changed and why.

Sources are not added casually. The bar for inclusion is that the source is the authoritative or near-authoritative voice in its category for its market, and that it publishes information directly relevant to fiber, gut health, GLP-1 medications, dietary guidelines, or food regulation.

Source changelog:

2026-05-15: Added Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (Wiley) to the Tier B peer-reviewed journals list. Added in support of citing Wang et al. 2024 "Short-chain fatty acids: bridges between diet, gut microbiota, and health" in the prebiotic-vs-probiotic post; the journal is a long-standing peer-reviewed gastroenterology publication and meets the Tier B bar.

2026-04-10: Added twelve sources following the 2026-04-10 content audit batch. Tier B additions: Cell, Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Diabetes Obesity and Metabolism, Gut Microbes, Journal of Nutrition, American Journal of Gastroenterology. US national additions: American Gastroenterological Association, American College of Gastroenterology, American Heart Association (professional guidelines). UK national additions: British Nutrition Foundation, National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS). Nordic regional addition: Nordic Nutrition Recommendations (NNR), added to all four Nordic country sections. Mayo Clinic and EUFIC considered and explicitly rejected: Mayo Clinic does not meet the peer-reviewed or regulatory bar and should be re-sourced to primary citations; EUFIC is an industry-funded communication body and is not a regulator or peer-reviewed journal.