Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#31

Post by suneilp » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 11:25 AM UTC

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…

Small typo in the url for Quantified Mind, it's quantified-mind.com

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#32

Post by suneilp » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 11:40 AM UTC

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…

In the first link, all of those stores are places I'd never buy supplements from. Many stores sell supplements from brands I never see when I research what to take to fix some problem.

When I realized that, that was the end of ever considering buying supplements from almost all stores.

Whole Foods and similar types of stores are reliable. However, I still prefer researching and buying online. Analyzing comments, both good and bad, are very revealing and can sometimes give you an idea if it will work for you.

But now I just try to eat my veggies and so on. Diversification of food choices gives you a more solid spectrum of nutrients and some foods/nutrients amplify the effects of other nutrients.

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#33

Post by j42 » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 12:33 PM UTC

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…

I'm not sure I see that as a fatal flaw... ultimately, the user is sitting in front of a digital box that can guide and prompt them in all the same ways a researcher can--the only limit is in performing tests that require a medical professional to assess biomarkers. If the pace of medical device development continues, it's even reasonable to think something like a Theranos-that-works could commoditize the process while being intrinsically tamper-resistant.

Regardless, users can be prompted to perform any software action (knowingly or unknowingly, to affect bias) and that action can be measured by the system. It may so happen that every critical measurement occurs unbeknownst to the user, before they self-report anything (if at all). As we are currently undergoing a period of sensor-proliferation (fitness/health devices, wearables, internet of things, etc...) it's not unrealistic to think we will soon be able to instantly correlate data from a smartphone camera, blood/tissue, and the cloud.

Now there's always the problem of intentional fraud/deception, but I think the aggregate nature solves that problem. A small percentage will try to "break" the system, and that small percentage will never surpass a critical threshold with enough volume. In terms of ML/SVM's, we're now very good about filtering outliers or "misrepresented data"... while the responsibility is on you to develop a reliable classifier (for data-consistency more than arbitrary measurement), I imagine at scale you could infer trends with the same relative accuracy of traditional academia and research.

It's a really fascinating new direction--even if only an adjunct to traditional research--and I'll definitely be keeping an eye on the project.

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#34

Post by afarrell » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 1:22 PM UTC

david_ar wrote: post #26

afarrell wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Why not? It is widely consumed, but there is a portion of the population that has a severe reaction to it.

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#35

Post by chrisrxth » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 3:11 PM UTC

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."

Yeah, that would be nice. There is such thing as a Certificate of Analysis which we are going to try to get from our supplier. http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/united-kingdom/technical-service...

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#36

Post by chrisrxth » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 3:13 PM UTC

chejazi wrote: post #29

I wonder why they picked L-Theanine for their first experiment - the effects are commonly known (caffeinated tea vs caffeinated coffee). Maybe this knowledge was used deliberately so people "feel" a drug the first time around, and want to keep going.

We picked L-Theanine because of its safety profile and mild psychactive properties, meaning you can tell if you've taking it or not but it's not an overbearing feeling. We wanted the first experiment to be fairly predictable while we work through all the kinks of launching this.

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#37

Post by chrisrxth » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 3:15 PM UTC

greggman wrote: post #28

Is there motivation to cheat? If I want to sell this stuff what's to stop me from signing up a bunch of people, having the pills tested, then reporting what I want you to find so I that you'll tell the public my product is effective?

This won't be an issue because we are supplying the supplements which are going to come from an established and reputable supplier. This is not a platform where anyone can sell their own supplements.

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#38

Post by synapticrelease » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 5:44 PM UTC

This sounds like it could very easily be abused as a way to peddle supplements while skimping on the experimentation aspect. It's a good idea though. Do you have plans to include something other than supplements? For instance, common foods (to be consumed daily for long periods of time) or simple activities/exercises? You could still derive revenue by selling the equipment/ingredients through your platform but it would allow you to vary the product while maintaining the consumer base. Also, doing it with something other than supplements could be cheaper and more newsworthy if you do discover something. Very interesting!

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#39

Post by Mz » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

I have done a lot of alternative med stuff. I know good protocols for how to test the waters, introduce new supplements, figure out what they are doing, etc. I would not use the service you are offering. It sounds to me like you are asking me to be a guinea pig.

To make this useful, I think you need to do the following things:

1) Educate people on good practices generally. Your current site looks to me to be an invitation to be someone's guinea pig and pay for the privilege instead of being paid.

2) Offer doubleblinded kits for a wide variety of supplements that people can choose from. The one supplement you are currently offering is one I never heard of. So I don't care. But I might care if you offered me the chance to pick and choose from a list of supplements.

I am no longer taking supplements, but I did take a lot of supplements at one time. I can see a service like this having a use for people, but not in its current format.

Also, I would remove the phrase "self experimentation." That sounds incredibly Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde to me. "Self testing" might be okay, but that's a terrible phrase and should be stricken from company vocabulary.

Re: Show HN: A Platform For Self-Experimentation

#40

Post by volkhavaar » Sat, Oct 17, 2015, 6:24 PM UTC

synapticrelease wrote: post #38

This sounds like it could very easily be abused as a way to peddle supplements while skimping on the experimentation aspect. It's a good idea though. Do you have plans to include something other than supplements? For instance, common foods (to be consumed daily for long periods of time) or simple activities/exercises? You could still derive revenue by selling the equipment/ingredients through your platform but it wou…

Thank you for your informative and critical feedback - skepticism is at the heart of science! Very true, the system could potentially be used to promote a specific agenda. However, we very much want to avoid a system that allows something such as this as much as possible. Ideally through implementing open-source / 3rd party / community-input based protocols. If you have suggestions in this regard we'd love to hear them!

And yes, we plan on including food at a later date!