Methodology

We fetch Reddit posts and comments from relevant subreddits using the Arctic Shift archive (Pushshift successor), with Reddit public JSON as a fallback. We filter by product keywords, then analyze sentiment with VADER (a rule-based sentiment analyzer tuned for social media) plus supplement-specific keyword weighting.

Sources

• Subreddits: r/Supplements, r/Nootropics, r/Biohackers, r/sleep, r/HubermanLab, r/SupplementReviews
• Time window: last 12 months
• Max posts per subreddit per product: 15; max comments per post: 60

Scoring

• VADER compound score (-1 to 1) per text unit
• Keyword boosts: positive cues (works, helped, recommend) and negative cues (waste, side effect, scam)
• Final score: 0-100 scale, where 50 = neutral
• Only texts that mention product match terms are scored; short or off-topic comments are dropped

Limitations

• Reddit skews toward enthusiast/early-adopter populations
• Self-selection bias: people with strong experiences post more
• Not a substitute for clinical evidence or medical advice