[Examine Newsletter] January 2024 Updates

See what’s new at Examine over the past month!  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ [Examine]( [View in browser]() Hello! Here’s your recap of Examine’s January 2024 updates. --------------------------------------------------------------- Examine 2024 sneak peek Jan 4, 2024 I hope you had a very happy New Year’s celebration! We’re excited to make Examine even bigger and better this year. Here’s a glimpse of what’s in store for 2024: Examine coming to your local library? In 2023, over a dozen school and public libraries signed up to give their patrons full access to Examine+ both in the library and remotely from home. In 2024, we’re aiming to expand the number of libraries signed up. If you work at a library or are a patron, we’d much appreciate it if you request that your library sign up for Examine and send them our [Library FAQ page](). Don’t hesitate to get in touch by replying to this email if you have any questions about library sign-ups, or if we can help you with the process. More safety information Before 2023, we had two part-time researchers on the Examine team with pharmacy degrees. In 2023, we hired two more pharmacists as full-time researchers. We specifically recruited pharmacists because supplement safety is critical, yet frequently undercovered. Most people presume supplements are safe because they’re not prescription medications. There are many reasons why this is misguided, including … - Most supplements that provide benefits can also be detrimental for certain people. - Supplements have very sparse safety data compared to pharmaceuticals (through trial data or adverse event registries), which implies that many of the downsides of supplements aren’t well quantified or tracked. - Supplements can interact with other supplements, pharmaceuticals, foods, or health conditions. It takes specific expertise in pharmacology to analyze data on these interactions, and to understand where the data may be lacking. Our four-person pharmacist team has been conducting tests during the past two months to see how long it takes to find, analyze, and add robust safety information to a small number of supplement pages. Since the research team also has a ton of other tasks to do, this won’t be something that pops up overnight on the site. But now that we have the expertise on staff and some time carved out, expect progress in 2024. Personalization We realize Examine can be … a lot. We have over 10 million words on the site, and because we [update every single day](), it can be overwhelming to stay on top of everything. Now, anyone with a free or paid account can [follow any page]() on Examine, which sends an email notification whenever the page is updated with new research. Examine+ subscribers can also personalize their study summaries feed by selecting which categories they’re interested in, and they can pick their preferred update frequency. In 2024, we’ll be expanding our customization options, giving you a dashboard with all the information that is relevant to you. Examine Pro We simplified our product offerings a few years ago, ending up with just a single product: the Examine+ membership. Our members span from physicians to personal trainers to interested laypeople and people just starting their nutrition and health journey. We knew that at some point, a chunk of health professionals would need a more specific product that helped them with patient and client care. That point is now. During the first half of 2024, we’ll be developing the Examine Pro membership. As the features start to solidify, we’ll draw in some beta testers. I’ll let you know how things shake out through these weekly emails. If you’re interested in participating or providing feedback — let me know! Exciting Super Secret Project I can’t reveal much about this one, because then it wouldn’t be very super secret. But I’ll be deliberately vague to (hopefully) pique your interest. Health research is astoundingly powerful. Yet most of it is locked away behind journal paywalls and written in dense, boring, jargon-heavy language. Hence the emergence of Examine, with our 30 or so researchers serving as a bridge between this useful data and you. But health research is only one part of the puzzle when it comes to health improvement and achieving health-related goals. Since Examine is a relatively small company that doesn’t accept outside funding and obsesses about objectivity, we can’t be your one-stop shop for health improvement. We don’t sell supplements, we don’t provide diet plans, and we don’t do health coaching. Yet there is one thing that most every Examine reader could benefit from, which we could theoretically provide. Something that’s tied to research, but doesn’t involve analyzing and summarizing studies. I can’t tell you what that is yet, though. When the idea is more fully fleshed out, and we figure out how much time and money we can dedicate to it, I’ll fill you in. For now, just know that all of us on the Examine team are really, really pumped about the Exciting Super Secret Project! “Hard mode” health conditions In response to [an email from last month](, 25% of Examine readers classified themselves as having a health condition that feels all-consuming. That number is astoundingly high. I’ve started calling these “Hard mode” conditions. In some video games, you can choose “hard mode” to make gameplay even more difficult. If you still manage to win, you’ll get a boost of satisfaction knowing that you beat tougher obstacles than usual. For “hard mode” health conditions, it’s a very similar setup: life can be challenging for most everyone, but if you’re on hard mode, daily life is consistently more difficult. But unlike in video games, that boost of satisfaction from winning is usually missing: most of these conditions don’t suddenly go away when you “win”. Nor, sadly, will most of your peers care that you got through another tough day. It may sound trite and a tad bit convenient, but Examine cares. Partly because we think about health conditions a lot while looking through research, and partly because some of us have a hard mode condition ourselves and feel extra empathy when we hear of others struggling. The most common hard mode conditions that Examine readers reported were: - [ME/CFS]( (commonly called chronic fatigue syndrome), - A few [chronic pain conditions]() - A few [autoimmune conditions]( - Depression and other all-consuming [mood disorders](=) There are plenty of other hard mode conditions, but the above came up the most. So our immediate next step is to gather more research on a couple of the above conditions, and start covering them in more detail. Examine readers with these conditions want to know more about disease mechanisms and potential current and future treatments, given that there’s rarely a straightforward treatment that works for everyone. As much as time allows, we’re happy to oblige and keep digging. --------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for reading all the way down this email. We’re going to make Examine even more useful and innovative this year, and are glad to have you along for the ride! --------------------------------------------------------------- 📅 Top 5 Study Summaries for January Jan 11, 2024 Every month, we summarize 150+ recent studies for our [Examine+ Members](. You can read five of this month’s most favorited Study Summaries for free by clicking the links below. The Study Summaries marked with are Editor’s Picks, which provide more details about the study, mention related studies, and include helpful graphics. [Personalized nutrition for weight loss: should you diet according to your genes?](=) In this 12-week randomized controlled study, participants lost a similar amount of weight whether they were assigned to a diet that purportedly matched with their genotype or one that didn’t. [Are omega-3s associated with fewer post-COVID-19 mental health conditions?]() In this 1-year retrospective study, use of omega-3s was associated with a lower risk for depression, anxiety, and insomnia related to the diagnosis of COVID-19. [Vitamin A levels and stroke risk]( In this meta-analysis of 20 observational studies, higher body levels of vitamin A, including both retinol and beta-carotene, were associated with a reduced risk of stroke and death from stroke. [The effect of switching from an unhealthy diet to a healthy diet on life expectancy]( In this cohort study, switching from an unhealthy diet to a healthier diet (in line with the UK’s Eatwell Guide) was estimated to increase life expectancy by several years. [Does supplementing with lemon balm improve mental health and sleep quality?](= In this randomized controlled trial, supplementing with lemon balm improved mental health and sleep quality in participants with self-reported elevated levels of anxiety, stress, or depression or poor sleep quality. You can also check out the [most-favorited summaries from previous months]().🔥 --------------------------------------------------------------- So, did you find something of interest? If not, please reply to this email to let me know which topics you’d like us to tackle. And if you’re ready to stay on top of the latest research, you can [try out Examine+ for free for 7 days](. --------------------------------------------------------------- What do you want to know about supplements? Jan 18, 2024 I’ve never sent you an email that talked about supplements in general, rather than a specific supplement or study. Since Examine is the leading supplement research website, it makes sense that we should talk more about the bigger picture of supplements. Click on the topic you most want to learn about, and we’ll cover it soon: - [What happens to supplements immediately after you swallow them?]( - [Which common supplements are the least effective?]( - [How does supplement research compare to pharmaceutical research?]() --------------------------------------------------------------- Where do conspiracy theories about health come from? Jan 25, 2024 You’ve probably heard these lines before: - They want to keep you sick so they keep making money. - Here’s what they don’t want you to know. You might read these statements and think “Oh those wacky conspiracy theorists …”, or you might have written to us in support of these sentiments. Today’s email is a divergence from our usual fare. I think the issues at the root of these kinds of statements are a bit more complicated than most people realize, and are actually quite important for understanding the big picture of health. Where did these sentiments come from? In 2002, my first job out of college was as a researcher in the strategy department of a massive U.S. health insurer. Everybody loves health insurance companies, right? Paragons of virtue. NOT! The job began as a regular 9 to 5. (What a way to make a livin’, am I right, Dolly Parton?) I didn’t know much about the healthcare system coming in, and right away was required to study for a [healthcare management designation](). I learned a lot. Alas, I was a square peg in a round hole. I asked too many questions and was rarely satisfied with the answers. I became more and more disillusioned each month, for reasons that anyone familiar with the state of the U.S. healthcare system should understand, and eventually left to attend school for public health. During my tenure at the insurer, part of my job was keeping up with major events going on in health, and summarizing them for insurance CEOs. One of those events was the rise and fall of [Vioxx](=), the blockbuster arthritis drug made by pharmaceutical giant Merck that got pulled from the market for causing thousands of heart attacks and deaths. The Vioxx fiasco was the first time I did a deep dive into who shapes these major events. On the one hand, there was no evil corporate and/or government cabal pulling the strings with the express intention of hurting people. On the other hand, Merck clearly wasn’t acting objectively. At several key junctures, they pushed back on safety concerns in ways that, retrospectively, obviously benefited the company and shareholders more than patients. But Merck isn’t responsible for all health disasters If only there was a single coordinated entity that was so, so evil and behind all the health problems in the world. We could do battle with it, end up victorious, and stop big corporate CEOs from hurting patients forever. But ultimately, the source of these issues are various individual people. Individual people are rarely all good or all bad. So why don’t individual people speak up when they become aware of shenanigans? - Maintaining a well-paying job that supports you and your family is a big deal. Even if you pretty obviously work for “The Man”, your coworkers and boss will normalize (and sometimes reward) behavior that supports the company. - A major debacle, such as Vioxx, is composed of dozens of much smaller screw-ups. The smaller screw-ups can be a mix of unintentional errors, intentional gaslighting or deflection, scientific uncertainty, and myriad other issues. - The science is rarely as certain as it appears. Certainty comes from multiple long-term controlled trials looking at every important outcome in a huge sample of diverse people. Studies typically have at least one methodological shortcoming, and often there’s opposing data from another study. At best, well-meaning scientists can draw conclusions from the available data that look like they make sense, but are actually wrong. At worst, corporations can hide behind these discrepancies. Are there intentional or unintentional bad actors in nutrition? Of course there are! But not in the way you might think. For example, [19 out of 20 members of the 2020 U.S. Dietary Guidelines Committee]() had potential conflicts of interest involving ties to food or pharmaceutical companies. The numbers appear to be a bit lower [for the 2025 Committee](. But that doesn’t mean that these people are hopelessly corrupt, and the guidelines are a sham. Not so fast. There are gray areas. For example, if you’re a nutrition professor, there’s a ton of pressure to churn out papers. Publish or perish. There’s a good chance that at least one of these papers was at least partially funded by a company or lobbying group. Funding can be very hard to come by, and sometimes scientists have to take what they can get, especially at a research university. Specific funding sources don’t automatically invalidate or affect the results of studies, but they do need to be disclosed so everyone can be aware of potential influences. I’ve met or otherwise interacted with a very small number of Dietary Guidelines Committee members. They did appear to be earnest academics who think objectively and are very well-read. That doesn’t mean they or others aren’t biased, though. I did have some different viewpoints than one of the members I met, but that might come from being less well-read on certain topics. And that’s not too surprising: committee members don’t always agree even with each other on individual nutrition issues. On the opposite side of the dietary guidelines are people who think the status quo is bunk and behind the times. There are some vegans who think the guidelines are bought and paid for by the beef and dairy industries, and some carnivores who think the guidelines are shoving carbs down your throat. Everyone has specific (sometimes very specific) beliefs based on their life experience and education, from low-carb dieters to U.S. Dietary Guideline Committee members. That doesn’t mean that everyone who disagrees with you (or me!) is a bad actor. I think it’s pretty clear that the committee member I disagreed with on a nutrition issue was still acting in good faith. Most people are doing their best to live healthy lives in the best way they know how, and help others do the same. And because health and nutrition are super, super complicated, sometimes we end up disagreeing. It doesn’t help that people vary wildly in their responses to even the same dietary intervention. People are so different that it can be difficult to identify a singular “truth” of nutrition and draw generalized guidelines around it. How do you figure out who’s objective and who might have an ulterior motive? We prefer to focus on the science. By working exclusively with the research, we’re able to cut through a lot of the marketing and lobbying misinformation. Examine is a much smaller company than you’d imagine, and we’ve never accepted third-party ads, partnerships, corporate gifts, or any other source of outside funding. We can’t do any of that because we need to stay as objective as humanly possible, no matter what it’d do for our short-term bottom line. Yet once in a while, even we get perplexing emails. If we summarize a study on plant-based diets, someone might accuse us of being funded by Big Agriculture. If we do the same for a keto study, we get accused of being funded by the beef industry. When we talk about the dangers of certain supplements, at least one person will accuse us of being funded by Big Pharma. When we talk about promising new supplements, we sometimes get accused of being supplement shills. (There’s a good reason we never recommend specific brands.) It’s so, so easy to accuse people of being bad when you feel strongly about something! And I get it! Nutrition is an emotional topic, especially when it hits too close to home. That’s why I wanted to discuss health conspiracy theories today. It’s okay to be enthusiastic about what you think really works for you. But if you find yourself constantly accusing people based on what worked for you, consider taking a step back. Are you always accusing in good faith? I’m curious about your thoughts. If you’ve developed a more nuanced view over the course of this email, or perhaps had a high up role in a food or drug company, I’d love to hear from you about your thoughts and experiences! I’m here not just to teach, but also to learn. Sincerely, Kamal Patel and Morgan Pfiffner Follow us on: [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [LinkedIn]( [Instagram](=) [About Examine]( | [Careers]() | [Member’s Area]() [Unlock Examine+]( PO Box 592, Station-P, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2T1 [Switch to weekly emails]() | [Opt out of all emails](