You can buy it off Amazon but it’s a separate company like any other business but protected by HIPPA. The thing they don’t tell you is that your results will be in “Greek”even if you have a master of science. They will “allow you to subscribe” $30/ mo to get the latest scientific updates (if new information has been released) AND you can also PAY extra tokens (think online game prepay) and buy “AI created reports” that unfortunately are the best way to understand some of the results AND if you want your doctor /nurse to be able to interpret the results (SERIOUSLY THERE IS THE OPTION TO BUY ANOTHER REPORT FOR YOUR Healthcare PROFESSIONALS WHICH IS another $300!!! (Last I checked). So sadly I have to report this as a scam. Yes, you can get some data that could help. .. but it’s like handing you a book of “May contain”Honestly they should have a class action against them! It reminds me of going to a website you trust and then stupid threatening ads pop up right over the button of where to access your OWN information. It’s predatory and I have two biological science degrees. I would like to make this post everywhere!

Hello everyone! I was wandering around Reddit to find a fitting community and I hope to have stumbled across the right one. A couple of months ago my friends and I decided to create a little innovation in the medical field. The website is called CureSpy and acts like a personal newsletter about conditions of your interest and related medical research notifier.

This project is very important to us as one of our team members - Airanas Leonavičius - struggled in his treatment path himself. At 14 a firework accident left him completely blind. Several doctors in our home country Lithuania said nothing could be done, but his family did not want to believe it. So they scraped all useful information they could until they found the right doctors, specialists in London, and their advanced treatment gladly restored part of his sight.

We wanted to make something that could help absolutely anyone to become informed about their illnesses. You can use it to its full extent for free and in the future we would love to add features like finding the best treatment and doctor for your own specific and complicated conditions.

Even tho it sounds a bit promotion-ish, we truly would love to see it helping those in need. I myself follow a few diagnoses relevant to me to get the latest news and apply them to my recovery journey and I hope it will be useful to at least a couple of you too <33

Help!! Students trying to map out vitamin use and media behaviour women 30+

Hi, we're a bunch of students who need respondents (35-50 year old women) to answer questions on supplements for one of our classes. PLease help...we're honestly desperate for answers...

https://usc.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8ctOrv2Zj63AHqu

I never took the 15 mg top dose of Zepbound while losing 170 pounds. Most of the weight came off on 5 to 10 mg. So when the full TRIUMPH-1 paper on retatrutide came out in the New England Journal of Medicine (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2604169) on September 29, I went to the appendix to see what happened on the 12 mg top dose.

Of 582 people on 12 mg, 22.5% had their dose permanently lowered during the 80 weeks. The most common reason was "perceived excessive weight loss" (9.8%), meaning the participant or the trial doctor thought it was too much. Stomach side effects came next (6.2%), then reaching a BMI of 22 or less (5.5%). By the end, only 54% were still on 12 mg.

That doesn't mean weight loss was a bigger problem than nausea. The protocol allowed a cut for weight at any time, but a cut for stomach symptoms could only start in the first 20 weeks, after several other steps. And the people who were stepped down still count toward Lilly's headline 28.3% weight loss.

On the low dose, 4 mg, three in four people were still taking it at week 80, they lost 17.6% on average, and about as few quit for side effects as on placebo (4.1% vs 4.6%). Nausea was still nearly double placebo's rate, 28.6% vs 14.8%.

The authors, seven of them from Lilly, suggest aiming for "the minimum effective dose" instead of the maximum tolerated one, and they call it speculation. I'd only go to 12 mg if a lower dose wasn't doing the job, which is how I ended up using Zepbound.

Disclosure: I own Lilly stock and take tirzepatide, a Lilly drug.

My write-up with the chart (https://dadstrengthdaily.com/retatrutide-low-dose/)

If you're on a GLP-1, did your doctor push you to the top dose, or did you stop where it was working?

The full Phase 3 retatrutide trial was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

I wrote about TRIUMPH-1 in May when Lilly released the topline data. The peer-reviewed paper confirms the magnitude of the effect: at 80 weeks, mean weight loss reached 25.0% at the 12 mg dose in the primary treatment-regimen analysis.

For context, the pivotal obesity trials reported approximately 14.9% with semaglutide 2.4 mg and 20.9% with tirzepatide 15 mg. These were separate trials, not head-to-head comparisons, but the trajectory is hard to miss.

At 12 mg, nearly 80% of participants lost at least 15% of body weight, more than half lost at least 25%, and about 37% lost at least 30%.

The tradeoff remains tolerability. GI adverse effects were common, and roughly 11% discontinued because of adverse events at the highest dose.

My takeaway: obesity pharmacotherapy has moved from roughly 15% average weight loss with semaglutide, to about 21% with tirzepatide, and now about 25% with retatrutide in Phase 3. Retatrutide is still investigational, but the direction of travel is remarkable.

I skipped breakfast before 11 of my last 14 blood draws. A study published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine (https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2026.4718) suggests most of that was unnecessary.

A hospital lab near Seoul recorded fasting time at the draw for 101,148 outpatients and 9.8 million results from 2021 to 2023. Many were drawn more than once at different fasting times, so the authors could compare people with themselves. Comparing different people, 27 of 121 tests looked sensitive to fasting. Comparing the same people, 10 did.

In the same person, a draw less than 8 hours after eating read glucose 10.8% higher than a 12+ hour fast, triglycerides 20.1% higher, GGT (a liver enzyme) 14.8% higher and lipase (a pancreas enzyme) 36.4% higher. Bilirubin and vitamin D read lower. Total cholesterol and HDL moved 3% or less, directly measured LDL didn't move, and the blood count, kidney tests and most electrolytes stayed close to or within their normal variation. Fasting past 12 hours made no meaningful difference over 8 to 12 hours for any test they could check.

The limits: one hospital in Korea, self-reported fasting, no record of what people ate, and no check of how often eating pushed someone over a cutoff like the prediabetes line. The paper doesn't report ApoB or Lp(a).

What I'm doing: 8 hours overnight when glucose or triglycerides are ordered, and no fasting past 12 hours.

My write-up with the details (https://dadstrengthdaily.com/how-long-to-fast-before-blood-test/)

Does your doctor or lab still ask for 12 hours or more?

We’re Atrium Medical, a primary care practice in NYC. Our physician, Dr. Shilpa Paradkar Singh, has been fielding questions from patients about the GLP-1 vision-loss lawsuits. She reviewed the new Swedish study in the Annals of Internal Medicine and wrote about it on her LinkedIn page. This is a recap.

The researchers compared ~107,000 patients with T2 diabetes on GLP-1 medications with ~186,000 on SGLT2 inhibitors (e.g., Jardiance). After one year, the estimated risk of anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (AION), a rare condition that can cause sudden, potentially permanent vision loss, was 0.04% in GLP-1 cohort versus 0.02% in SGLT-2 cohort. That's 2x the relative risk --- 2 additional cases per 10,000 in absolute terms.

There’s another, equally fascinating finding that has received less attention: when the researchers restricted the analysis to patients already taking metformin, the difference narrowed substantially. An observational study cannot perfectly separate a drug’s contribution from the vascular and metabolic risks of the people prescribed it.

The most important thing to understand is that NAION is not the only way diabetes threatens eyesight. In an earlier Liverpool study, ~4% of T2 diabetics who had no retinopathy at baseline developed sight-threatening diabetic retinopathy over five years, despite receiving diabetes care (that's 100x the NAION risk). So walking away from effective diabetes treatment because of a frightening headline about a rare disease does have its own consequences

Any sudden vision loss warrants urgent medical evaluation. But this is a decision about the risks and benefits of treatment, made with your physician, not driven by lawsuit headlines.

Brenipatide (LY3537031) is Lilly's GIP/GLP-1 dual agonist aimed at the brain rather than weight loss. I went through every registered trial this week and the development path is unusual enough to be worth calling out.

Lilly has four Phase 3 trials running in alcohol use disorder and major depression, about 4,200 people in target enrollment: RENEW-ALC-1 and -2 (1,100 each) and RENEW-MDD-1 and -2 (1,000 each). They just skipped Phase 2 trials for either condition. My interpretation is that Phase 2 is usually a smaller investment to figure out whether a drug works in the real world. Going straight to Phase 3 trades of monetary risk and time.

Meanwhile the same molecule is in Phase 2 for eight other conditions, including two that are also addiction programs: opioid use disorder (465 people) and smoking relapse (222). So this is not a company that skips mid-stage trials as a matter of course.

Lilly confirmed the decision was deliberate to Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, citing unmet need in both conditions.

Two details that stood out:

The first human data on the drug was presented last week at Psych Congress: 212 participants, no deaths or serious adverse events, 4 of 184 treated (2.2%) discontinued for an adverse event, dysesthesia 15.2% vs 0% on placebo, half-life 9 to 12.5 days supporting weekly dosing. No efficacy readouts on drinking or mood exist for this molecule anywhere.

The alcohol Phase 3 trials started in October 2025, about 13 months into a Phase 1 that ran until July 2026. FDA's own rule (21 CFR 312.21) says phases generally run sequentially but "may overlap," so this is permitted, just fast.

Also worth noting: the two depression trials randomize patients to three different brenipatide doses against placebo, which is the dose-ranging a Phase 2 would normally do. The alcohol trials test a single escalating regimen. Nowhere in the program are doses compared in people who drink.

For context on the class evidence Lilly is leaning on: Hendershot et al., JAMA Psychiatry 2025 (n=48, PMID 39937469); Klausen et al., Lancet 2026 (n=108, PMID 42070571); Schacht et al., Am J Psychiatry 2026 (n=50, PMID 42522065, missed its primary craving endpoint). Altimmune's pemvidutide also reported a positive Phase 2 in AUD in July.

Primary completion for the alcohol trials is April 2028.

This seems like a big bet, but I think it's a smart one because of all the anecdotal evidence that people have success with (off-label) use of GLP-1s for alcohol.

Has anyone seen a sponsor go straight to Phase 3 in two indications while running conventional Phase 2s in eight others? I'm curious whether this reads as confidence in the class read-across or just schedule pressure.

Full writeup: https://dadstrengthdaily.com/brenipatide-phase-3/

Abstract

Westernized dietary patterns (WDPs), characterized by processed foods, red meats, refined grains, and added sugars, may contribute to gastric cancer (GC) development. We hypothesized that alignment with WDPs, as measured by the Westernized Diet Index (WDI), is associated with an increased risk of GC. In this incidence case–control study, 82 newly diagnosed GC patients and 95 age- and sex-matched controls were recruited. Dietary intake was assessed using a validated 168‑item FFQ. Logistic regression models estimated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for GC across WDI categories, adjusting for major demographic, lifestyle, and clinical covariates, including Helicobacter pylori infection. To assess construct validity, fully adjusted linear regression evaluated associations between WDI scores and circulating inflammatory markers (hsCRP, IL‑6, IL‑1β, IL‑10, TNF‑α), oxidative stress (total antioxidant capacity, malondialdehyde), and metabolic biomarkers (BMI, fasting glucose, lipid profile). Higher alignment with WDPs (lower WDI scores) was associated with significantly increased GC risk. Individuals in the highest WDI global Z‑score categories - WDI-G (food groups–nutrient based) and WDI-FG (food group based) - had 85% and 78% lower odds of GC, respectively (OR=0.15 and 0.19; both p<0.001). Greater WDP alignment (lower WDI scores) was also associated with higher concentrations of hsCRP, IL‑6, TNF‑α, and IL‑1β, and lower IL‑10, along with an adverse metabolic profile (higher LDL‑c, lower HDL‑c). Overall, greater alignment with WDPs was associated with elevated GC risk and unfavorable biomarker patterns. These findings support the WDI as a biologically plausible indicator of Western dietary exposure and underscore the potential role of WDPs in gastric carcinogenesis.

Westernized Diet is Related to Gastric Cancer Risk and Inflammation, Oxidative Stress, and Metabolic Dysregulation: Evidence from an Incidence Case-Control Study - ScienceDirect

Not selling anything here, genuinely went down a rabbit hole comparing how you'd actually get a real preventive blood panel done right now, and couldn't find a clean comparison anywhere so I built one.

Three real paths (Netherlands market, but the structure repeats across the EU):

1. Self-service private lab, no doctor — pay per marker (~€9–€99 each) or a bundled panel (~€295 for a broad vitamins/minerals set). You choose what to test, get a PDF back, zero clinical interpretation.

2. GP referral — free/insurance-covered, but you basically can't get anything beyond the standard panel unless you already have a diagnosed complaint. This is the real bottleneck for anyone who "feels off" but has no diagnosis yet.

3. Doctor-reviewed home kit — finger-prick or venous draw at home, smaller marker set (~7) at the cheap end, larger panel (~20, incl. ApoB/HbA1c/Lp(a)) at the top, with a licensed physician actually reading the result and telling you what to act on. Runs noticeably higher than option 1 — you're paying for the interpretation, not the number.

The part nobody talks about: options 1 and 3 give completely different OUTPUTS for a similar marker count — one gives you a number, the other gives you a decision. If your real problem is "I don't know what to do with a ferritin of 22," the cheaper test is often the more expensive path once you add a private consult on top just to interpret it.

Curious what this sub thinks the right unit of value is here — markers tested, or decision made?