5 ms·

Anybody here has done first hand experiments on themselves care to comment?

by nashequilibrium 12y ago

kyberias 12y ago
Why would a single experiment on one individual have any interest?
- nhoven 12y ago
  Because self-experimentation is an excellent source of data. Obviously we'd prefer a series of double-blind, controlled experiments whose results have been rigorously replicated, but that doesn't mean that less rigorous experiments have no value.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    > Because self-experimentation is an excellent source of data. No it isn't. People quote Barry Marshall[1] all the time but most people don't perform their self-experimentation with any kind of rigour. How many people have access to endoscopy to take before / after tests? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall
    - beagle3 12y ago
      > No it isn't. Self experimentation could be an excellent source of data. Quite a few "interesting" things cannot effectively be rigorously tested, either because we have no effective placebo, or because they are inhumane (e.g., the vast majority of so-called "rigorous" diet studies are actually based on self-reporting and willful compliance, because you can't keep people in controlled a lab for more than a few weeks). Also, as Ionnadis pointed out, quite a bit of (supposedly rigourous) published research is simply wrong. So for a lot of things, we have to do with "amateur hour" experiments, whether conducted in a university lab and published in Nature, or conducted at home and published in a blog. Self-experimentation can easily disprove a "general truth" but cannot really support one due to lack of controls ( and do recall the scientific method is statement about disproving things, not about proving them) However, if you do stumble on a local version of a "general truth", you can then look for the n->inf version more rigorously. You can look at e.g. the late Seth Roberts for examples; the ideas are interesting, some of his successes have been replicated by enough people; Among these - correlation between Vitamin D intake time and sleep quality (see gwern for a rigorous test of that experiment, that confirms it for n=|{gwern}|=1, and many other less rigorous; Rigorous correlation among flax seed (supposedly omega 3) intake, butter, bacon and response time for n=|{seth}|=1, which I have not published but have verified rigorously for n=|me|=1 about flax seed. And there are a few others. I think some of his ideas are crazy but almost all are interesting. (Self-reported) success on his Shangri-La diet is ~80%, which is very high for a diet, but obviously not a general truth since it is not 100%. It worked for me once, but not the 2nd time a couple of years later despite following exactly the same protocol. I'd say self-experimentation is much less rigorous, but way more time-and-captial efficient way of arriving at results.
      - mrfusion 12y ago
        I think most of our progress in life is self-experimentation in one sort or another. We try things and do what works and stop doing what doesn't. By the way, did anyone find out what happened to Seth?
        beagle3 12y ago
        According to http://blog.sethroberts.net/2014/05/10/cause-of-death/ http://blog.sethroberts.net/2014/05/10/cause-of-death/ , his family should be getting the report around now, and they mentioned the intend to share the details.
- brador 12y ago
  Because it gives you ideas for new things to try. Especially useful when all known solutions have failed.
poober 12y ago
You might be interested in our startup. Our pitch is we are the Uber of poo. Steaming hot delivery to your doorstep, custom crowdsourced blend.
dlss 12y ago
I'm the CEO of GeneralBiotics.com, we sell a probiotic created using Human Microbiome Project datasets (our CTO did his postdoctoral work there). The product is not a DIY FMT, but serves a similar function (restore missing aggregate metabolic pathways). Personally, from generation 1 of our product onwards I've felt considerably less stressed, more upbeat/happy, and haven't had diarrhea (I have IBS-D, so that's a huge one for me personally). Our pilot study has offered us preliminary confirmation of this, so we're paying for a 200 person placebo-controlled follow up study. Early versions did have hiccups, but IMO gas is FAR preferable to diarrhea. I don't personally think DIY is worth the risk, as there are a lot of things you'd absolutely need to screen for if you're considering that route (see http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/776501_4 http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/776501_4 for a minimal list). I think you should also screen for mental disorders, stress disorders, mood disorders, etc. Basically anything known to be correlated with the microbiome at minimum. Assuming you've screened for those things (which is to say basically a pro-level FMT), I think it's basically safe -- there are a lot of FMT procedures performed every year with minimal side effects. #include disclaimer: obviously not medical advice, etc, etc
- lunarcave 12y ago
  Very Interesting. I'd be willing to give a go, but I don't think you ship to my country.
  - dlss 12y ago
    Alas. Shipping microbes across borders is a tricky business. It takes about 30 days to get a decision one way or another, we are prioritizing lawyer time using the wait list: http://eepurl.com/5qS9z http://eepurl.com/5qS9z
    - deskamess 12y ago
      I signed up and curious how high Canada is on the list... I see a lot of pro/pre biotic products in the store so it is certainly not banned. Another question... what is your take on the fecal transplant process and do you ever think it could end up in a "pill format"? Are you aware of any such pills in the North American market?
ganzuul 12y ago
Reducing my intake of short carbohydrates in combination with changing to a gluten-free diet has vastly improved my mental health and emotional stability. ED: Can't reply because of rate-limiting. So; It breaks down a bit differently. Foods which are gluten-free are quite different in several ways. There are a lot of unhealthy things I avoid while also avoiding gluten. I think that short carbs influence the dopaminergic system which intestinal health influences the serotonergic system. Both are feel-good hormones. I suffer from chronic depression which seems to mean permanently reduced levels of one or both of these. I'm an 80s kid, meaning my formative years happened during a time which was crazy on many levels. I don't have diabetes, fortunately. Aside from chronic depression I'm in very good health. Take this as you will.
- r00fus 12y ago
  Which do you think had the bigger impact?
- stef25 12y ago
  Are you coeliac or you just think that gluten is bad for you?
  - Mc_Big_G 12y ago
    I know it's popular to make fun of people who don't eat gluten and don't have celiac disease and I'm the first one to correct people who says gluten is "bad for you", however this is not the full story. There are people who are "gluten sensitive" and my wife is one of them. More specifically, she is only sensitive to gluten in American products. She cannot eat anything with gluten here in the US without immediately having very painful stomach cramps and bloating. We spend about one month per year in Spain, where she is from, and she eats all the bread and gluten that she wants with absolutely no problems. So, all I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't be quick to judge people who don't eat gluten and don't have celiac, unless they're just doing it because they heard it was bad.
    - Stefan-H 12y ago
      "only sensitive to gluten in American products" I have a hard time believing that the nationality of the gluten has anything to do with her reactions. Perhaps you are confusing correlation with causation? I think the more likely cause of her reactions is something else in the products in the US that are causing her reactions. An interesting study for you to take a look at as well: http://www.businessinsider.com/gluten-sensitivity-and-study-replication-2014-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/gluten-sensitivity-and-study-...
ericson578 12y ago
I've been doing a strict ketogenic diet for almost six months. Very low carb from veggies mostly, 25% of my diet is protein, and about %70 healthy fats. My allergies were terrible before, now they are barely there and manageable taking the occasional zyrtec. My gastrointestinal issues are mostly gone, although I've read that could be from a reduction in inflammation in the gut lining, but might be related to changes in my gut microbes too. Hard to tell. My energy levels are more sustained and even (no more crashes), and my moods are generally better. Who knows if my changing gut flora is the reason, it might be. I know not feeding those little buggers tons of sugar really changes things up! :) Or it's all placebo and I'm just healthier in general. Either way I'm feeling better. I'm sure science will eventually figure out if the link is causal or not, but in the meantime don't let my anecdotal story sway you too much. edit: oops I forgot to mention I also take a probiotic every now and then. Align is the name, I like it but I don't take probiotics regularly.

Anybody here has done first hand experiments on themselves care to comment?

kyberias 12y ago

Why would a single experiment on one individual have any interest?

nhoven 12y ago
Because self-experimentation is an excellent source of data. Obviously we'd prefer a series of double-blind, controlled experiments whose results have been rigorously replicated, but that doesn't mean that less rigorous experiments have no value.
- DanBC 12y ago
  > Because self-experimentation is an excellent source of data. No it isn't. People quote Barry Marshall[1] all the time but most people don't perform their self-experimentation with any kind of rigour. How many people have access to endoscopy to take before / after tests? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall
  - beagle3 12y ago
    > No it isn't. Self experimentation could be an excellent source of data. Quite a few "interesting" things cannot effectively be rigorously tested, either because we have no effective placebo, or because they are inhumane (e.g., the vast majority of so-called "rigorous" diet studies are actually based on self-reporting and willful compliance, because you can't keep people in controlled a lab for more than a few weeks). Also, as Ionnadis pointed out, quite a bit of (supposedly rigourous) published research is simply wrong. So for a lot of things, we have to do with "amateur hour" experiments, whether conducted in a university lab and published in Nature, or conducted at home and published in a blog. Self-experimentation can easily disprove a "general truth" but cannot really support one due to lack of controls ( and do recall the scientific method is statement about disproving things, not about proving them) However, if you do stumble on a local version of a "general truth", you can then look for the n->inf version more rigorously. You can look at e.g. the late Seth Roberts for examples; the ideas are interesting, some of his successes have been replicated by enough people; Among these - correlation between Vitamin D intake time and sleep quality (see gwern for a rigorous test of that experiment, that confirms it for n=|{gwern}|=1, and many other less rigorous; Rigorous correlation among flax seed (supposedly omega 3) intake, butter, bacon and response time for n=|{seth}|=1, which I have not published but have verified rigorously for n=|me|=1 about flax seed. And there are a few others. I think some of his ideas are crazy but almost all are interesting. (Self-reported) success on his Shangri-La diet is ~80%, which is very high for a diet, but obviously not a general truth since it is not 100%. It worked for me once, but not the 2nd time a couple of years later despite following exactly the same protocol. I'd say self-experimentation is much less rigorous, but way more time-and-captial efficient way of arriving at results.
    - mrfusion 12y ago
      I think most of our progress in life is self-experimentation in one sort or another. We try things and do what works and stop doing what doesn't. By the way, did anyone find out what happened to Seth?
      - beagle3 12y ago
        According to http://blog.sethroberts.net/2014/05/10/cause-of-death/ http://blog.sethroberts.net/2014/05/10/cause-of-death/ , his family should be getting the report around now, and they mentioned the intend to share the details.
brador 12y ago
Because it gives you ideas for new things to try. Especially useful when all known solutions have failed.

poober 12y ago

You might be interested in our startup. Our pitch is we are the Uber of poo. Steaming hot delivery to your doorstep, custom crowdsourced blend.

dlss 12y ago

I'm the CEO of GeneralBiotics.com, we sell a probiotic created using Human Microbiome Project datasets (our CTO did his postdoctoral work there). The product is not a DIY FMT, but serves a similar function (restore missing aggregate metabolic pathways). Personally, from generation 1 of our product onwards I've felt considerably less stressed, more upbeat/happy, and haven't had diarrhea (I have IBS-D, so that's a huge one for me personally). Our pilot study has offered us preliminary confirmation of this, so we're paying for a 200 person placebo-controlled follow up study. Early versions did have hiccups, but IMO gas is FAR preferable to diarrhea. I don't personally think DIY is worth the risk, as there are a lot of things you'd absolutely need to screen for if you're considering that route (see http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/776501_4 http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/776501_4 for a minimal list). I think you should also screen for mental disorders, stress disorders, mood disorders, etc. Basically anything known to be correlated with the microbiome at minimum. Assuming you've screened for those things (which is to say basically a pro-level FMT), I think it's basically safe -- there are a lot of FMT procedures performed every year with minimal side effects. #include disclaimer: obviously not medical advice, etc, etc

lunarcave 12y ago
Very Interesting. I'd be willing to give a go, but I don't think you ship to my country.
- dlss 12y ago
  Alas. Shipping microbes across borders is a tricky business. It takes about 30 days to get a decision one way or another, we are prioritizing lawyer time using the wait list: http://eepurl.com/5qS9z http://eepurl.com/5qS9z
  - deskamess 12y ago
    I signed up and curious how high Canada is on the list... I see a lot of pro/pre biotic products in the store so it is certainly not banned. Another question... what is your take on the fecal transplant process and do you ever think it could end up in a "pill format"? Are you aware of any such pills in the North American market?

ganzuul 12y ago

Reducing my intake of short carbohydrates in combination with changing to a gluten-free diet has vastly improved my mental health and emotional stability. ED: Can't reply because of rate-limiting. So; It breaks down a bit differently. Foods which are gluten-free are quite different in several ways. There are a lot of unhealthy things I avoid while also avoiding gluten. I think that short carbs influence the dopaminergic system which intestinal health influences the serotonergic system. Both are feel-good hormones. I suffer from chronic depression which seems to mean permanently reduced levels of one or both of these. I'm an 80s kid, meaning my formative years happened during a time which was crazy on many levels. I don't have diabetes, fortunately. Aside from chronic depression I'm in very good health. Take this as you will.

r00fus 12y ago
Which do you think had the bigger impact?
stef25 12y ago
Are you coeliac or you just think that gluten is bad for you?
- Mc_Big_G 12y ago
  I know it's popular to make fun of people who don't eat gluten and don't have celiac disease and I'm the first one to correct people who says gluten is "bad for you", however this is not the full story. There are people who are "gluten sensitive" and my wife is one of them. More specifically, she is only sensitive to gluten in American products. She cannot eat anything with gluten here in the US without immediately having very painful stomach cramps and bloating. We spend about one month per year in Spain, where she is from, and she eats all the bread and gluten that she wants with absolutely no problems. So, all I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't be quick to judge people who don't eat gluten and don't have celiac, unless they're just doing it because they heard it was bad.
  - Stefan-H 12y ago
    "only sensitive to gluten in American products" I have a hard time believing that the nationality of the gluten has anything to do with her reactions. Perhaps you are confusing correlation with causation? I think the more likely cause of her reactions is something else in the products in the US that are causing her reactions. An interesting study for you to take a look at as well: http://www.businessinsider.com/gluten-sensitivity-and-study-replication-2014-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/gluten-sensitivity-and-study-...

ericson578 12y ago

I've been doing a strict ketogenic diet for almost six months. Very low carb from veggies mostly, 25% of my diet is protein, and about %70 healthy fats. My allergies were terrible before, now they are barely there and manageable taking the occasional zyrtec. My gastrointestinal issues are mostly gone, although I've read that could be from a reduction in inflammation in the gut lining, but might be related to changes in my gut microbes too. Hard to tell. My energy levels are more sustained and even (no more crashes), and my moods are generally better. Who knows if my changing gut flora is the reason, it might be. I know not feeding those little buggers tons of sugar really changes things up! :) Or it's all placebo and I'm just healthier in general. Either way I'm feeling better. I'm sure science will eventually figure out if the link is causal or not, but in the meantime don't let my anecdotal story sway you too much. edit: oops I forgot to mention I also take a probiotic every now and then. Align is the name, I like it but I don't take probiotics regularly.