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Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

doubleblinded.com

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Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#21

Post by chrisrxth »

ryporter wrote: post #18
alexbock wrote: post #5

This makes me wonder if there is a simple procedure for doing a pseudo-double-blind study on oneself (without a third party). That is, trying something that can be prepared in pill form in such a way that you don't know during any given day/week/month if it was a placebo, but that you can still determine that later to collate the data. I know a lot of people that swear by particular unregulated supplements or dietary…

I, too, have thought about conducting a pseudo-double-blind experiment on myself. I think I could pull it off, but I'd also be willing to pay a third party to help me. For example, DoubleBlinded could partner with a respect supplement maker, and offer personal experiments in any supplement made by their partner. The consumer wouldn't have to worry about setting up the experiment correctly, and they would get their ow…

This is definitely one potential path we are considering. There's a question of whether we want to keep this specific to supplements/pills or try to broaden it to other things like exercise or diet (which are not exactly double-blindable)

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#22

Post by chrisrxth »

aresant wrote: post #11

A very cool idea @ the high level, but one fatal flaw: "At the end of each day you will fill out a short survey with a few questions evaluating the effects of the pills." Self-reporting is an unsuitable mechanism to draw out scientific results. There's an excellent detailed explanation available (1) but in TL;DR here are four of the most compelling factors at work: 1 - Honesty/Image management 2 - Introspective abili…

Just read through that. I agree with the points about self-reporting being unreliable.

Even with the bias of self reporting, differences between real and placebo will still be meaningful. You can't entirely deceive yourself if you don't know what you just took.

Also, there is some degree of honesty required for this experiment. If someone really wanted to, they could open up the pills and taste them to see if it's placebo or not. They could also intentionally lie. But the goal here is to learn about yourself through experimentation, so I expect most people that participate to have some level of desire for truth and honesty. I would also argue that while these biases do exist, even large randomized clinical trials have the same pitfalls, so we are not necessarily worse off than what's already out there.

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#23

Post by afarrell »

dangrossman wrote: post #7

It's hard to do a test like this when there's a significant chance you're buying nothing but powdered rice regardless of what the bottle says. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/sidebar-whats-in-th... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/science/herbal-supplements... Want to do a double-blind study on whether St. John's Wort improves your mood? None of the bottles tested from Walmart, Target, GNC or Walgreens actu…

I kinda wish the FDA had some certification to the effect that "this contains what it says it contains and its contents are no more likely to kill you than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#25

Post by Uptrenda »

chrisrxth wrote: post #20
Uptrenda wrote: post #16

Isn't there a huge potential for crowd sourced research platforms to take off and help advance the state of the art? So far it seems like most studies are done by scientists / academics in a very closed off kind of way, but the true nature of science is open to everyone and with the right platform we might be able to use normal people to gather enough data to confirm or deny our hypotheses in a way that's much more o…

There are some in existence already: - quantifiedmind.com for self-testing your mind, which has a few group experiments as well. I'm looking into integrating with them as part of doubleblinded.com. - PACO (by Google) https://www.pacoapp.com/ Pretty cool and flexible platform, although not the most user friendly or easy to figure out. It is open source and has an app, which is cool. - A few sites like 23andme and ubio…

The "eventually much more" part is what most interests me.

You guys might actually be some of the first researchers in the world to experiment with this kind of model. I can see this being very big if its marketed right.

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#26

Post by david_ar »

afarrell wrote: post #23
dangrossman wrote: post #7

It's hard to do a test like this when there's a significant chance you're buying nothing but powdered rice regardless of what the bottle says. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/sidebar-whats-in-th... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/science/herbal-supplements... Want to do a double-blind study on whether St. John's Wort improves your mood? None of the bottles tested from Walmart, Target, GNC or Walgreens actu…

I kinda wish the FDA had some certification to the effect that "this contains what it says it contains and its contents are no more likely to kill you than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

Peanut butter probably isn't the best example...

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#27

Post by personjerry »

Uptrenda wrote: post #16

Isn't there a huge potential for crowd sourced research platforms to take off and help advance the state of the art? So far it seems like most studies are done by scientists / academics in a very closed off kind of way, but the true nature of science is open to everyone and with the right platform we might be able to use normal people to gather enough data to confirm or deny our hypotheses in a way that's much more o…

IIRC, https://experiment.com/ is funded by by YC
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