Talking about health products responsibly

The Federal Trade Commission expects any claim about a health benefit to be backed by competent and reliable scientific evidence, which for most health claims means good human clinical studies. That applies to the overall impression a post leaves, not only the exact words. A photo, a caption, an emoji and a hashtag can make a claim together that no single sentence makes.

A testimonial is a claim. If you say something worked for you, readers take it as a sign it will work for them, so the same rule applies to your story as to an advertisement. The safest ground is what you did and how you feel, said as your experience, without a promise that anyone else will see the same.

Disease words change everything. Treat, cure, prevent, heal, reverse and diagnose, or the name of a condition next to a product, turn a wellness post into a drug claim. Keep them out.

The peptide treatments on Avellum are prescription medications. A licensed clinician decides whether one is right for a person after a telehealth visit, and a licensed pharmacy compounds it for that patient. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. The FDA does not review them for safety, effectiveness or quality before they are sold, and saying or implying otherwise is one of the most common mistakes in this market.

Since September 2025 the FDA has sent several waves of warning letters to telehealth companies over how they market compounded GLP-1 medications. The letters cite claims that a compounded product contains the same active ingredient as a brand-name drug, wording that suggests FDA approval or review, and branding that hides where the medication comes from. So do not compare a compounded medication to a brand-name drug by name, do not call it a generic or a version of one, and do not put prices side by side.

Do not share doses, schedules, stacking advice or injection instructions, even from your own experience. Those are decisions between a patient and their clinician, and a post that reads as dosing advice can put the reader at risk. When someone asks, point them to a visit with a clinician.

Stay away from "research peptides" sold online as not for human use. Promoting them, or explaining how people use them anyway, is promoting an unapproved drug for human use.

A before-and-after photo is a claim about results. Under the FTC’s Endorsement Guides it has to reflect what people generally achieve, or the post has to say clearly what a typical result is. A small "results not typical" line does not fix a misleading picture.

Use only your own photos, or photos the person in them has agreed in writing to share. Do not edit, filter or retouch them, keep the lighting, pose and clothing comparable, give the real time between them, and mention everything that contributed, like changes to food, exercise or sleep, not only the product.

Advertising platforms set their own limits on weight loss images, and they change them. Meta’s health and wellness ad standards have restricted side-by-side weight loss comparisons, and other platforms have similar rules for paid posts. Check the platform’s current policy before you boost or advertise a post.

Leave out body shaming and pressure: pinched fat, scales, "before you were happy" framing, or captions that suggest a person needs to change. Weight loss content belongs in front of adults only.

Reverse aging, turn back your biological age, add years to your life, slow aging at the cellular level: each of these is a health claim that needs strong evidence, and most products cannot support it. The same goes for measurable promises about energy, focus, sleep or libido.

Talk about longevity as a set of habits you keep and why they matter to you, not as something a product does to your lifespan.

A blood panel gives information, and a clinician interprets it. Do not tell anyone what their results mean for their health, do not diagnose yourself or anyone else from a number, and do not say a product will raise, lower or fix a marker.

Your own results are yours to share, but think about what a screenshot tells the world before you post it. Never post someone else’s results, even with their name cropped out, unless they have told you that you can.

Describe what an app actually does: it organizes your results, explains markers in plain language, and helps you follow your progress over time. Do not say it diagnoses, treats or predicts disease, or that it replaces a doctor. Under the FDA’s general wellness policy, low-risk tools that support healthy habits are treated differently from software that claims to diagnose or treat, and the words used to describe an app are part of what decides which one it is.

Be careful with claims about AI itself. The FTC has brought cases against companies that exaggerated what their AI could do. Say what it does, not what it might do.

Health data is protected well beyond HIPAA. Washington’s My Health My Data Act and similar laws in other states cover health information collected by apps and websites, and the FTC’s Health Breach Notification Rule covers many health apps. If you build or recommend tools, treat health data as sensitive by default.

The FTC’s Endorsement Guides, updated in 2023, require you to disclose any connection to a company that a reader would not expect and that could affect how they weigh what you say: payment, free products, a discount, a job, a family tie, or a business relationship, including being part of a direct selling business. Put the disclosure in the post itself, where it cannot be missed, not only in your bio or behind "more". In a video, say it out loud and put it on screen. Plain words work best: "I’m an Avellum customer", "I work with this company", "#ad".

Clinicians are no exception. When a doctor, nurse or other clinician who works with or is paid by a company talks about its products, the relationship belongs in the post, and a clinician speaking on a company’s behalf is held to the company’s claim rules, not only their own medical judgment.

Reviews have their own rule. Since October 21, 2024 the FTC’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials bans fake reviews, reviews from people who never used the product, paying for reviews with a required sentiment, insider reviews without disclosure, and buying followers or views.

Keep each company’s products in their own posts. A post about a telehealth treatment or a lab panel is not the place for a supplement from another company, and the reverse is true too.

Make no income or earnings claims anywhere near health content, and follow your own company’s rules of conduct, which are often stricter than the law. Never suggest that a health product, a lab test or an app is part of a business opportunity or that anyone earns from it.

Clips from podcasts, shows, news segments and other creators’ videos belong to someone else. Posting them, even with credit and even in short pieces, is usually infringement, and fair use is narrower than most people think. The same goes for music: business and creator accounts often cannot use popular tracks, and the platform’s licensed library is the safe choice.

Do not use a celebrity’s, public official’s or doctor’s name or image in a way that suggests they endorse a product. That is a right of publicity problem as well as a misleading claim.

Reach out one to one to people who asked to hear from you, about what they asked for. Do not add anyone to a group text, an email list or an automated sequence without their consent: federal law limits marketing texts and calls without consent, and marketing email needs a working way to opt out. When someone says stop, stop.

If someone shares their contact details with you through Avellum, use them only to help that person get started, and keep them private.