What are we building here?
We are building a deep research tool to uncover health hacks.
Who are we?
We are a small U.S.A based team of one science writer/cancer survivor in Tennessee, one data scientist/engineer in Northern California, and one transplant nurse practitioner in Ohio.
Lisa DeMeyere
MSN, ACNP-BCLisa's experience as a transplant nurse practitioner disciplines us to be simple and clear.
Jessica Johnson
Microbiology (MS), Science and Medical Journalism (MS)Jessica's experience as a science writer and breast cancer survivor drives us to be creative and grounded.
Boris Dev
Data Science in Human Geography (PhD)Boris is building the software.
Why care about health hacks?
- Double-check that there are no health hacks to try out before starting a medication that the medical consensus agrees has heavy adverse effects. For example, one might consider cognitive behavioral therapy over sleeping pills for chronic insomnia.
- Double-check that you have not overlooked any health hacks that might be almost as convenient as doing nothing. For example, one might consider music therapy for dementia symptoms before giving up.
What's here that's not on Mayo Clinic, WebMed, etc?
The short answer: Big health websites miss out on personal stories shared on Reddit. Their focus is on summarizing the institutional medical consensus.
The long answer: Depending on your issue, there might be two problems with relying solely on the medical consensus.
- The averaging problem: You might or might not be the average patient. The medical consensus is based on the averaging of treatment effects over a wide range of patients. Averaging hides individual effect variations in side effects and treatment effectiveness. For a disorder like a broken leg, the average patient might be a good proxy for you. For a disorder like ADHD, the average patient might not be a good proxy for you. In such cases, Nobsmed's distilling of personal experience shared on Reddit might be helpful.
- The observation problem: Not all medical outcomes can be quantified or even clinically observed. For example, the effect of ADHD stimulant medication on creativity or male libido would be hard for a clinical trial to measure, and thus be overlooked by the medical consensus. In such cases, Nobsmed's distilling of personal experience shared on Reddit might be helpful.