Privacy and trust
How to spot hormone-health grifting
A checklist for cycle and hormone products: undefined terms, tests that always find something, proprietary blends, and the regulatory disclaimer that gives the game away.
Key takeaways
- ‘Hormone balance’, ‘adrenal fatigue’ and ‘oestrogen dominance’ have no clinical definition — which means no test can rule them out and no threshold declares you cured.
- A 2016 systematic review of 58 studies was titled ‘Adrenal fatigue does not exist’. No endocrinology society recognises the diagnosis.
- Ask two questions of any direct-to-consumer panel: who set the reference range, and what result would have come back clean?
- Real conditions have criteria you can fail to meet. PCOS, thyroid disease and PMDD all do; a proprietary blend and a testimonial do not.
There is a reason the wellness industry has concentrated so heavily on cycles, PMDD, PCOS, and perimenopause. These are conditions where symptoms are real and often severe, diagnosis is slow, and a lot of people have been told by a professional that their bloods are normal and they should try to relax. That is an audience with a genuine unmet need and a justified distrust of the front door. The market that grew in that gap is not selling treatment. It is selling the feeling of being taken seriously, at a monthly subscription price.
This is a checklist for telling the two apart. None of these tells is proof on its own. Three or more together, and you are looking at a funnel.
1. An undefined term is doing all the work
"Hormone balance" is not a clinical diagnosis. Neither is "adrenal fatigue", "cortisol face", or "oestrogen dominance" as popularly used. They sound like conditions, which is the point: a term with no definition also has no test that can rule it out, and no threshold at which you would be declared cured.
"Adrenal fatigue" is the clearest case. A 2016 systematic review in BMC Endocrine Disorders, titled without ambiguity "Adrenal fatigue does not exist", examined 58 studies and found systematically conflicting results, driven in part by cortisol assessment methods not endorsed by endocrinologists. No endocrinology society recognises the diagnosis.
Compare that with real endocrine conditions. PCOS has diagnostic criteria. Thyroid disease is confirmed with TSH and thyroid hormone levels. PMDD has criteria requiring prospective symptom rating across cycles. Each has a definition you can be measured against, which also means you can fail to meet it.
2. The test always finds something
Watch for panels sold directly to consumers that measure hormones in saliva or dried urine and return a colour-coded report of everything that is "suboptimal". The word suboptimal is carrying weight there, because it is not a clinical category. There is no agreed reference range for optimal.
Two questions to ask of any test being sold to you: who set the reference range, and what result would have come back clean? If the answer to the second is "essentially none", the test is a sales instrument. That does not make the underlying analyte fake; it makes this use of it uninterpretable.
3. A proprietary blend
A proprietary blend lists ingredients without listing doses. That is legal, and it makes the product impossible to evaluate: you cannot compare the amount of any ingredient with the amount used in whatever study is being cited on the same page. If a formula works, the dose is its best argument. Hiding the dose is a choice.
4. Before-and-afters instead of trials
Testimonials, transformation photos, and screenshots of grateful messages are marketing assets, not evidence. They have no control group, no blinding, and heavy survivorship bias: the people it did nothing for did not send a message. Cycle symptoms also fluctuate on their own, which means almost any intervention started during a bad week will look effective by the following one.
5. No named clinician, or a credential that is not a licence
Look for a real name, a real registration, and a regulator you could complain to. Then check whether the credentials on display are licences at all. Certificates from private institutes and coaching certifications can be perfectly honestly held while conferring no authority to diagnose or to advise on medication.
This site fails a version of this test on purpose, and says so: Flowy has no clinician on staff and no contracted medical reviewer, every guide states that above the first paragraph, and the editorial policy explains what follows from it. Stating the limitation is the point. Being unclear about it is the tell.
6. Claims written around the regulator
In the United States, dietary supplements are not approved by the FDA before they go on sale. Manufacturers may make structure/function claims, such as that a product "supports" some part of normal function, and if they do, the label must carry a disclaimer stating that the FDA has not evaluated the claim and that the product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Manufacturers must hold substantiation that a claim is truthful and not misleading, but they do not submit it to the FDA.
So the disclaimer on the back is doing something specific: it marks the line between what is being implied and what can legally be said. A page whose testimonials describe curing a condition, above a footnote saying the product treats nothing, is telling you exactly where it stands. The FTC does bring enforcement actions over deceptive health claims, but that is after the fact and after the money.
7. Manufactured urgency, and a code
A discount that expires tonight, a cohort closing on Friday, a stock counter. Legitimate treatment does not run on scarcity. Add to this the affiliate structure behind much of the category: the person recommending it earns on the click, which is not automatically disqualifying but is a conflict that should be disclosed and usually is not.
8. "Doctors will not tell you this"
The framing that turns a real experience of dismissal into a sales mechanism. It is effective because the premise is often true: people with cycle conditions frequently are dismissed, and diagnostic delays for conditions like endometriosis are long and well documented. What follows the premise is the sleight of hand, moving from "the system has failed you" to "so buy this instead of pursuing it".
What honest uncertainty looks like
The opposite of a grift is not confidence. It is calibration. Sources worth trusting tend to:
- name the specific study and its size, and say when the evidence is weak
- distinguish symptom relief from mechanism, rather than using the first to imply the second
- state what would change their mind, or what the test cannot rule out
- tell you the point at which you should stop reading and see someone
- have nothing to sell you at the end, or disclose plainly what they do
Flowy's editorial and commercial position
So this article can be held to its own standard:
- What Flowy sells. An app subscription. Nothing else. This site carries no advertising, no affiliate links, no sponsored posts, and no supplements, and no product mentioned in a guide has paid to be there.
- Who writes it. Rohit Gupta, the founder, who is a software engineer and not a clinician. Guides are assembled from published guidance by named bodies, and each one links what it used.
- What it will not claim. No diagnosis, no interpretation of your symptoms, no confirmation of ovulation or pregnancy, and no advice to start or stop a medicine. Estimates are labelled as estimates.
- Corrections. If a claim here does not match its source, email rohit@flowyhealth.com and it gets fixed, with an updated date on the article.
When to spend money, and on what
Not everything sold in this space is a scam, and dismissing all of it is its own error. Iron for a diagnosed deficiency, a heat pack, a decent set of period underwear, a private appointment to shorten a diagnostic wait you cannot bear: these are ordinary purchases with a clear rationale.
The distinction is whether you are buying a specific thing for a specific reason you could explain to a clinician, or buying a system that promises to correct something no one has demonstrated is wrong.
Frequently asked questions
Are all supplements a waste of money?
No. Supplementation for a diagnosed deficiency is standard care, and some supplements have reasonable evidence for specific symptoms. The problem is the category sold on the promise of correcting a "hormone imbalance" nobody has diagnosed. Tell your doctor what you are taking, since some supplements interact with medicines.
My doctor said my bloods were normal but I feel awful. Is a private hormone panel worth it?
Understandable, and worth a caution: an unvalidated panel will very likely find something to name, which feels like an answer without being one. A more productive route is usually a prospective symptom record over two or three cycles, which is what a clinician can actually work from, plus a request for a second opinion or referral.
How do I check a study a product is citing?
Look for whether it was in humans, how many people, how long it ran, whether there was a control group, and whether it used the same dose as the product. A surprising proportion of citations in this space are animal studies, or human studies of a different dose, or reviews that conclude more research is needed.
Is it grifting if the person selling it believes it?
Sincerity is not a defence for a claim that is not supported, though it does change what is going on. Either way, judge the claim and the evidence, not the vibe of the person making it.
Flowy is a private cycle tracker with nothing else to sell you. It does not diagnose anything, confirm ovulation, or work as contraception.
This article is for general education only. It is not a diagnosis or a substitute for care from a qualified healthcare professional.