Reddit mentions of Green Tea Extract with EGCG & Vitamin C - Antioxidant & Immune Supplement - Vegan Skin & Heart Support + Brain Health & Memory Boost - 120 Count

I agree with you on all counts. I call these "Incentivized" reviews.

In Amazon's TOS, it says you're allowed to get a product for free or at a discount in exchange for a review, but only if you disclose the relationship. While the "disclaimer" always claims it's an honest and unbiased review, the data shows otherwise. After examining nearly 5,000,000 reviews, here's what we're seeing in the data:

Reviews that contain a "free/discount" disclaimer (Incentivized): 4.74 Average Rating

Reviews that do NOT contain a disclaimer (Non-Incentivized): 4.38 Average Rating

Furthermore, the distribution of ratings looks pretty bad:

Non-Incentivized

1-Star: 4.8%

2-Star: 3.7%

3-Star: 7.4%

4-Star: 16.9%

5-Star: 67.2%

Incentivized

1-Star: 0.4%

2-Star: 0.8%

3-Star: 3.1%

4-Star: 16.0%

5-Star: 79.6%

So people who receive free products are 10x LESS likely to give a 1-star review. Yikes.

You may be thinking that the incentivized reviews are higher because only brands that believe in their products will send them off to users for review, and that's not what we're seeing. Time and time again, we see that the reviews for the exact same product are higher when the reviewer got the item for free. Check the "Incentivized Reviews" section of these example reports:

http://reviewmeta.com/amazon/B01AD2IJL6 (5.0 from Incentivized, 4.1 from Non-Incentivized)

http://reviewmeta.com/amazon/B00RH5I8U0 (4.7 from Incentivized, 4.3 from Non-Incentivized)

http://reviewmeta.com/amazon/B00H4IBD0M (4.5 from Incentivized, 4.2 from Non-Incentivized)

Here's what we're also seeing in the data - the emergence of power reviewers who have 1000's of incentivized reviews who pretty much ONLY give 5-star ratings. This is because the 3rd party companies who facilitate the exchange of products for reviews allow the brands to vet the reviewers before sending the product out. Obviously they want to only send the product out to reviewers who only give 5 star reviews. So if you give too many critical reviews, you're cut off from your supply of free or discounted junk.

Anyway, I could write a book on why these reviews are totally biased (which of course I'd sell on amazon and give away a bunch of copies for free or at a discount in exchange for reviews). But here's a bit more on the incentivized reviews test: http://reviewmeta.com/blog/incentivized-reviews/

Hi, so I’ll provide some insight from my n=1 experience with some body fat that was covering my abs. It appeared to have come about by trying to always eat at a surplus as well as extra fruit at night.
Note: I thought this was water retention until asking around Reddit. And this is at 10% bf!
https://m.imgur.com/XntafgR



But to make a long story short, the supplements I’m taking now daily is
> Decaf EGCGs with all or all-1 meals https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RH5I8U0

(I have up caffeine back in 2016 due to adrenal fatigue)

> Coleus Forskolii 1x a day https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0747YVVCB

> 2x l-carnitine furmarate inbetween meals https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0013HXKC4


These have helped along with implementing carb cycling, IF, and some minor morning HIIT mainly with jump rope.

Here’s how I currently look now after these experiments from the past month, to today (greater Serratus visibility, 4pack looks “healthy”, and overall a lean but anabolic appearance)
https://i.imgur.com/C18moam.jpg


Background: my diet is pretty bulletproof being a low carb, low FODMAP, AIP Paleo. I’m 29 and 5 8. I also run once a week at a distance of 9miles, but my job is someway sedentary. Before implementing these changes, I was under the belief that calories don’t matter at all when eating a whole food approach. Now I’ve revised that thinking to say they PARTLY matter, but really it’s moreso about your selections of Whole Foods, and not always opting for say, berries.

To get here, last month I started out by doing a 10 day Keto (was going to do 3, then 7, then made it to 10 before I said F-this I want to be able to do push-ups again, lol)... so definitely I found insanely difficult primarily from just having no workout strength. The Keto community will say that that is not long enough to see results, but I did, and I know I can be in ketosis in as little as 24h or less due to already beings fat adapted and low carb inherently due to intolerances (as shown by some Organic acid testing) The willpower of also only consuming greens as my carb source rather than say butternut squash was also starting to play games with me. Carb cycling (3 days off such as only greens with your fat and protein, 1 day with whole food carbs) is much better for us smaller body types, that don’t have THAT much fat already. Carb cycling was something that I heard Chelsea Axe (Dr Axe’s wife) talk about in something she implements and has excellent success with. I found this very interesting and have had past acute success with (as noted by the first image, thinking I was holding water but was actually small “smooth” body fat)

However right now I’m not even really doing carb cycle. In fact the opposite, whereby i like to carb backload since I workout in the evenings, but instead of fruit I instead opt for a organic rooty starch like Pumpkin or Butternut Squash, and I’m doing this nightly. I may have like 5 frozen strawberries and raspberries if desiring that sourness. This was never something I did before, thinking that rooty startchy vegetables where causing this “water retention”... which was actually bodyfat. So now doing these starches instead, nightly only, at 1 meal (idk if eating these earlier would have any difference in effect, I just like to carb backload again due to schedule, but also biological knowledge about being more insulin sensitive in the evening too), I’m noticing good results. So why perhaps?
Maybe I’m increasing thyroid output and overall metabolic rate, while NOT intaking a bunch of extra glucose.

I’ve determined that getting my 2014 Keto caffeine abs back isn’t too sustainable
http://imgur.com/V0uSYo1

Here I was in a very fatigued, catabolic, but low bf% state, whereby I killed off all of carbs, and really wasn’t eating enough raw material, despite building these blocky abs from them being my complete workout focus. However I was also doing a TON of yoga at the time, and too much running as well. I was also fully caffeine dependent using it like a biohacker that had gone mad where I’d have beside teabags “brewing” in water bottles for the morning wake up. Anyway...

Last thing... This article was also handy and my main takeaways from this was:

• IF fast (which I can do easily)
  
• do HIIT (mines more like jump rope, and some random higher acute cardio stuff)
  https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/how-to-lose-body-fat-now-the-most-effective-methods-explained.html
  
  
  Final thoughts:
  If you want to abstain from caffeine for a week, you should note some greater effects when introducing it back in. This isn’t feasible for me, but I noticed this when forgetting that 90% cacao chocolate is loaded up with caffeine and seeing some crazy results. Personally I would go that route. Cut coffee and such. Then I member super dark chocolate 85%+ (not working about the fat or calories), and also Impelenbt matcha green tea powder to get loaded up on EGCGs.
  
  Otherwise, check out those 3 supplements, and do some IF. My fast simply is not eating until noon or 1p the following day after final meal is at 11p. If you haven’t already, switch to a high fat, high protein diet. I personally wouldn’t bother counting calories once your body setpoint is working and you can be easily satiated (and blood sugar stabilized with lots of fat) for hours with say, grass fed beef and ghee/refinded coconut oil.
  
  HMU if u have more Qs...
  
  [ Note: Probably typos in here, I wrote this on my phone after taking some CDP Choline; I want to see some upvotes on this dammit for the last 40min of life being fed into this post :P ]