What Founded Health is, where its answers come from, and what happens to what you type.
No. Founded Health is software. It searches published guidelines and research and summarises what it finds. Using it does not create a doctor-patient relationship, and nothing here is personal medical advice.
It cannot examine you, does not know your history, and cannot tell you whether something is serious. For that you need a clinician who can actually assess them.
Answers are generated automatically from the sources found at the time you ask, then graded by how strong that evidence is.
Some are also read by a physician against the sources they cite, and those carry a reviewed badge with the reviewer's name and the date. An answer without a badge has not been individually checked yet. Reviewing is done by spot-check, starting with the questions people ask most.
Either way, every claim is linked to its source, so you are never asked to trust a summary on its own. See about for who is behind the site and our editorial policy for how answers are produced and reviewed.
Because they are not evidence. A blog post can be accurate, but nothing about it tells you whether it is, and health content in particular is heavily shaped by marketing and personal conviction.
Founded Health is restricted to sources that have been through some form of external scrutiny: guideline committees, systematic reviews, peer-reviewed trials, and established expert organisations. It is not that other writing is worthless, it is that it cannot be graded, and grading is the entire point here.
Because the approved sources did not contain enough good research to answer confidently, and saying so is more useful than guessing.
This does not mean the answer is no. It usually means the question has not been studied well, is too specific, or is too new. Plenty of sensible medical practices have never been formally trialled.
If you get this on a question you would expect to be well covered, try rephrasing it more simply, and please let us know.
Your question is sent to Anthropic, which runs the model that produces the answer, and to the search service used to find sources.
Questions and their answers are also stored on our own server, so that a repeated question can be answered instantly without researching it again. That is 30 days, or 90 days where a physician has reviewed the answer. Nothing is linked to your name, account or IP address, because we do not collect any of those.
Because of this, please do not include names, dates of birth, addresses or other identifying details in your question. You do not need them: Founded Health answers general questions, so "is co-sleeping safe at four months" works exactly as well as anything more specific.
Full detail is in the privacy policy.
Grades describe the strength of the research, not how sensible the advice is. Many well-established medical practices rest on observational studies rather than randomised trials, because it would be unethical to randomise people to a potentially harmful condition.
A grade of Good or Mixed is not a warning against the advice. It is a statement about how firmly the evidence supports it. How we grade evidence explains each level.
No. Founded Health is a starting point for understanding what the research says, and a way to arrive at an appointment better informed. It is not a substitute for care, and it should never delay it.
If you are worried about your health, contact your doctor or health service. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.
Please do. Email hello@askfoundedhealth.com with the question you asked and what you think is wrong, or use the reporting link on the answer itself.
Our editorial policy sets out what happens to a report.
Educational information only. Not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and no doctor-patient relationship is created by using this. Founded Health has not examined you and does not know their history, so its answers may not apply to you. Never delay or disregard advice from a qualified health professional because of something you read here. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.