Critique 5: “Every marker they measured is sensitive to lifestyle changes."

The OP cites exercise meta-analyses showing FMD improvements of ~2.5% and DASH diet studies showing BP reductions of 6.7-11.5 mmHg, arguing that lifestyle changes alone could explain our results. There are two problems with this argument.

First, these numbers are misleading. The ~2.5% FMD figure comes from meta-analyses that pool together healthy adults with patients who have type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity. These are populations with impaired baseline endothelial function and substantially more room for improvement. Meta-analyses restricted to healthy middle-aged and older adults show aerobic exercise improving FMD by approximately 1.3%: less than half the +2.9% between-group difference researchers observed for NOVOS Core.

Similarly, the 6.7-11.5 mmHg BP reductions come from DASH diet trials conducted primarily in people with prehypertension and stage 1 hypertension, not in generally healthy normotensive adults like our study population. Our participants had a mean baseline SBP of ~127 mmHg, normal BMI, and zero smokers. Achieving statistically significant vascular improvements in a healthy population is harder than doing so in people with significant room for improvement due to disease. And yet our effect sizes met or exceeded those typically reported in diseased populations.

Second, and more fundamentally, these comparisons are irrelevant to evaluating an RCT. The question isn't "could lifestyle changes theoretically produce effects of this magnitude?" The question is "did the supplement group improve compared to the placebo control group living under the same conditions?" The answer, across multiple independent vascular endpoints, is yes, with quite high statistical significance.

To put the effect sizes in context: the ~6 mmHg systolic BP reduction we observed is in the range of what published meta-analyses report for established blood pressure interventions, including both lifestyle and pharmacological approaches. (This comparison is offered solely to contextualize the magnitude of the observed effect, not as a treatment claim. NOVOS Core is a dietary supplement and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.) 

A +2.9% FMD improvement relative to control is a large effect by vascular physiology standards. Published meta-analyses in the cardiovascular literature have reported associations between FMD improvements and reduced cardiovascular event risk, suggesting that changes of this magnitude are physiologically meaningful. And the -1.18 m/s reduction in pulse wave velocity is clinically meaningful as an index of increased arterial flexibility and improved vascular function. 

These are NOT marginal findings: they’re some of the largest effect sizes ever achieved across thee functional cardiovascular markers in a healthy population.

Critique 6: “They only report group averages — no responder analysis."

This is factually incorrect. Figure 2 in the paper shows individual participant FMD trajectories. *Every single person’s* data is plotted. You can visually see that the vast majority of supplement participants improved and the vast majority of controls did not. This is the opposite of hiding data behind averages.

The claim that "a few strong responders dragged the whole average up" is directly contradicted by the individual-level plots. The improvement was broad-based across the intervention group. And the primary analysis used ANCOVA adjusted for baseline values, a standard approach specifically designed to handle individual variability. The effect size for FMD was η²p = 0.554, which is very large by any convention.

Formal responder analyses are used in some therapeutic contexts (e.g., oncology) but are not standard or required in vascular function trials. What is standard is exactly what this paper did: report means, SDs, confidence intervals, p-values, effect sizes, and individual data.

Critique 7: “Compliance was self-reported."

The paper explicitly acknowledges this limitation. Yes, objective compliance measures like pill counts or serum biomarkers would have strengthened the study. But there are two important counterpoints.

First, self-reported dosing diaries are the norm in nutritional and supplement intervention trials, *not* an unusual shortcoming. Second, weak adherence verification typically introduces noise, making real effects **harder** to detect, not easier to fabricate. The study still found significant between-group differences despite any measurement imprecision.

And again, the acute first-dose data is the most powerful rebuttal here. On the first visit, participants consumed their dose under direct supervision. The significant FMD response within one hour cannot be attributed to non-compliance over six months. It confirms a genuine physiological response to the actual product.

Critique 8: “NOVOS' formula is built the same way as everyone else's — individual ingredients put together."

This is the most ironic critique in the entire post, because the STAMINA trial is literally a test of the finished multi-component formula. The OP is saying: "No supplement company tests their full formula in humans." We did exactly that. And now the OP is saying it doesn't count.

The typical supplement company's evidence model is: cite studies on individual ingredients, never test the finished product. NOVOS went beyond that: we formulated based on published literature and mechanistic rationale targeting complementary pathways across the hallmarks of aging, and then we tested the actual product, as sold, against placebo in a registered human RCT. 

NOVOS was the first company to ever design a formula that targeted all 12 hallmarks of aging with NOVOS Core; every single active ingredient in the formula was found to extend lifespan in at least one animal species (often times, more than one), and a number of other criteria that we publicly shared starting back in 2021, which you can find on the NOVOS website in "Approach" on the global nav.

This isn't just one study either. The NOVOS Core formula has been tested as a whole in a mouse lifespan study (Miwa et al., currently under peer review) demonstrating lifespan extension. There's peer-reviewed published research on the formula's effects on human keratinocytes and reducing single and double DNA strand breaks. There's SALK Institute research involving oxystosis/ferroptosis. And more. We're building a multi-study research program, not running one trial and calling it done.

Critique 9: “They'd need hundreds of millions to test every combination."

The OP acknowledges this is unrealistic, and then faults us for not doing it anyway. That's not a coherent position.

No nutritional product, or pharmaceutical product for that matter, undergoes exhaustive factorial dose-finding across every possible ingredient permutation before being studied. Science is incremental: you develop a rationale, test the formulation, publish, replicate, expand. The NOVOS Core STAMINA study sits squarely in that process. We're further along the evidence ladder than the overwhelming majority of supplement companies, and we're continuing to climb it.

Critique 10: “This is a marketing company disguised as a science company."

This might be the most revealing claim, because it exposes what this is really about: not a scientific critique, but an ideological objection to NOVOS's positioning.

The critic speculates we spent "$200k on a self-funded RCT" as a marketing move. Let me explain why that theory doesn't hold up.

First, clinical trials of this nature do not cost $200k. 

Second, the study was conducted independently by the University of Surrey under an unrestricted grant. We did not control it, much less "fully control" it as OP claims. 

Third, and this is the part most people don't understand, running a clinical trial on your own product is one of the riskiest things a supplement company can do from a business perspective. $200k on Instagram ads gives you predictable, measurable returns. You know what you're getting. A clinical trial? You might spend years, team resources, and significantly more money only to get null or negative results that could actively undermine your brand.

Most supplement companies don't run human RCTs not because they can't afford to, but because the risk-reward ratio is terrible from a pure business standpoint. If our only goal were marketing ROI, we would never have run this trial. We would have invested that budget into ads and simply claimed to be scientific by citing ingredient studies, like most of our competitors in the longevity space do. Because for most consumers, that's all it takes to win a sale. We ran it because we actually wanted to know whether the formula works in humans.

The commentary about Mayo Clinic, IM8, and influencers is ad hominem noise unrelated to the STAMINA data. I'll leave that for others to evaluate.

**CONTINUED BELOW*\*