Transmutable Explorations

Category: Reviews

  • Apollo Neuro Review

    Apollo Neuro Review

    When I finally got serious about ‘getting fit’, I bought my first Oura ring.  At the time, I primarily wanted to fix my sleep issues.  A happy side effect of this purchase was that it made me more aware of my Heart Rate Variability (HRV).  I always considered my HRV on the lower side, but quickly realized that I felt my best when it was at the higher end of the range.  Pretty much since this realization, I’ve been experimenting with various ways of raising my HRV.  Many ways of raising HRV involve dedication to a regular practice… exercise, breathwork, mindfulness, gratitude, etc.  This isn’t always easy and started my quest for the ‘easy’ fix for raising HRV.  This led me to discover the Apollo Neuro device.  Read on for my Apollo Neuro Review.

    What Piqued My Interest

    I eventually started to hear about the Apollo Neuro on various podcasts.  It started out as advertisements and I was like “yeah, right, this sounds like complete wishful thinking”.  Eventually I heard an interview with the founder and key employees and thought “Ok, I can see how this *could* work.”  This led me to the Apollo Neuro website where I was initially turned off by the price.  I did sign up for the email list though to keep up to date with what they were doing.  Over time, as I had a chance, I read their blog posts and some of the scientific studies.  Eventually, I decided to take advantage of a sale and purchase one in order to test it for myself.

    What is it?

    So what exactly is the Apollo Neuro?  It’s a haptic wearable.  You can clip it to your chest or wear it around your wrist or ankle and it silently delivers vibrations to your body.  Apollo mentions that it needs to be worn near a bone in order to have its stress resiliency improvement results.  This is how it claims to achieve it’s results.  What’s the exact mechanism of action?  It’s not clear, but my prior research into improving HRV has indicated many positive studies related to both touch therapy and increasing vagal nerve tone.

    My Apollo Neuro Review

    The Software

    In addition to the Apollo Neuro wearable device, there is also a mobile app.  The Android app allows you to control which ‘Vibes’ are played on the device.  At the time of writing, this includes things like Energy, Social, Focus, Recover, Calm, Unwind and Fall Asleep.  For each Vibe, you can control the length and intensity of how each play.  There is a mechanism for scheduling Vibes.

    The Apollo Neuro Android app also collects metrics on usage.  This is used to provide a bit of gamification and estimates on the perceived benefits you’ve received by using the device.

    The Protocol

    My plan was to stop doing anything new to intentionally modify HRV for 2 months.  This would define a ‘baseline’ HRV using my OURA ring.  Care was taken to maintain my same workout, drinking regimen and note using Oura tags any anomalies.  After defining this, I would do the same wearing the Apollo Neuro device.  There was a one week transition period to figure out the ins and outs of the wearable.  The data collected during this week would not be counted for either part of the experiment.

    I quickly found that I most preferred wearing the Apollo Neuro around my left ankle.  Yes, it looks like I’m wearing an ankle monitor, but shorts season is only part of the year!  Apollo recommends using the device for at least 90 minutes during the day and 90 minutes during the night.  I followed the following schedule for the duration of the experiment:

    • 9:00 AM Focus Vibe for 30 Minutes at 20% Intensity
    • 11:00 AM Social Vibe for 30 Minutes at 20% Intensity
    • 1:00 PM Energy Vibe for 30 Minutes at 15% Intensity
    • 4:00 PM Recover Vibe for 30 Minutes at 25% Intensity
    • 7:00 PM Social Vibe for 60 Minutes at 25% Intensity
    • 10:00 PM Fall Asleep Vibe for 30 Minutes at 40% Intensity

    So what did I find out while doing this?

    The Good

    Wearing the Apollo Neuro device using the supplied band was fairly comfortable.  Sometimes socks interfered with wearing it, but overall I forgot most of the time that I was even wearing it.

    It actually works at raising my HRV! Based on my testing, it consistently raises my HRV by almost 15%  Even when drinking.  It maybe related, but my deep sleep averaged an extra 3 minutes during this time as well.  The Apollo app estimates that I’ve been getting 6 minutes of extra overall sleep each night during this time.  Oura is recording significantly more total sleep time than that.

    The different vibes feel noticeably different.  Subjectively, I do feel a difference in response to the different vibes.

    The gamification is nice.  This is a good way to guarantee that I’m regularly checking in with the app.

    The scheduling capability is fairly extensive.  You can configure everything that you would want to do.  Even though I’ve kept my schedule the same every day for this experiment, you can easily change it to be completely different every day.

    Oura ring integration.  Nothing really appears to be done with this yet, but I like that they’re thinking about it.  They’re getting tons of free information from me here, so it would be nice if they would give me something in return.

    The device supports airplane mode.  This is a requirement for me for any wearable that is likely to be used while I’m sleeping.

    The Bad

    Former Android developer speaking here… like almost every wearable device, the Apollo Neuro Android app experience has a lot of room for improvement.  My biggest gripes here are described below (with one major one in the ‘Ugly’ section), but so much more could be done with the gamification and responsiveness of the app.

    No Google Fit/Health Connect support. iOS users can link their Apollo Neuro accounts to Apple Health and track their Apollo wearable usage as Mindful Minutes.  It would be great if the same were done for Android users.  This could also be tracked with the Oura integration.

    Inability to join waitlist for the labs features.  I’ve tried several times and in several different ways to get access to the labs features.  There’s at least one vibe that I’m very interested in: Go Back to Sleep.  In the latest version of the app, clicking on ‘join the waitlist’ appears to do nothing.  NOTE: in a future version of the app, I was indeed able to join and gain access to the labs features.  I was able to trial this out and it was mostly pretty buggy on Android.  I ultimately did not continue with this as it was an additional paid feature of the Apollo Neuro app after my trial expired and it wasn’t something that I found value in.

    There are general issues with syncing data.  It’s not seamless and requires you to constantly connect the Apollo Neuro to the app in order to make sure the app is aware of all of your usage.  You’ll soon see why this is a big problem.  I’ve broken my streak in the gamification because of this issue.  For someone like me, the stress caused by this issue likely counters some of the benefits that the Apollo Neuro wearable seems to provide 🤣

    The Ugly

    The ugliest pain point with the Apollo Neuro is unfortunately an issue with just about every wearable that supports Android.  The app/device is plagued by major bluetooth connectivity problems.  Everyone always blames this on “Android Fragmentation”.  As a former Android developer, this was an issue early on, but it’s really not a valid excuse anymore if you’re properly coding to the Bluetooth stack using modern Android best practices.

    Oura has been one of the only wearable manufacturers that seems to be focusing effort on providing an equivalent experience on Android compared to iOS.  Their app now works very well.  This issue is so bad on the Apollo Neuro that it often takes close to 10 minutes for the wearable to connect to the app.  I’ve experienced this on both the Pixel 6 and 8 Pro.  During a firmware update it once lost its connection resulting in a requirement to factory reset the device in order to make it usable again.

    The device still uses micro USB… the most annoying of the USB connectors.  These days, a device that costs as much as the Apollo Neuro should be supporting USB-C.

    The Apollo Neuro customer support is horrible.  They freely admitted that the Android experience wasn’t what it should be and really didn’t have any suggestions for making things better.  On two occasions they pushed a firmware update that stopped the device from working for days at a time.  The process that they had me go through to fix it the second time ultimately resulted in bricking the device.  This poor support for Android users, ultimately became a deal breaker for me and I returned my Apollo Neuro for a partial refund at the urging of customer support.

    Conclusion

    Overall, I was initially happy with my Apollo Neuro purchase.  If they fixed the bluetooth and syncing pain points, it would definitely be a much more effective device for me.  Being my usual Quantified Self, I look forward to some Health Connect support.  More Oura integration is also intriguing… Apollo is likely getting tons of data from this, but it would be great to see the ability to tag in Oura so I can make correlations.  Another awesome feature would be auto-tailoring your Vibes daily schedule based on data from Oura.  I plan on experimenting more with different vibes and intensities and with wearing the device on other places on my body.  Have you used the Apollo Neuro?

    NOTE: I have stopped using the Apollo Neuro because of the longstanding issues with the Android Software and support.  A firmware update was pushed that ultimately bricked the device.  Apollo support was not helpful in resolving the matter so I ultimately returned the device for a partial refund.

  • ZBiotics Review

    ZBiotics Review

    There are parts of the year when there is a beer fest every weekend.  Whenever the weather is great, I want to hang out at a great outdoor beer garden.  If I ever want to become a BJCP Master Beer Judge, I also need to take advantage of judging homebrew whenever I can.  This lifestyle can also hinder your ability to get things done the next day.  I’m not into that.  Earlier this year, I got to try ZBiotics as a way to combat this.  Read on for my ZBiotics review.

    Alcohol Metabolism 101

    There’s no longer any doubt that alcohol is a (sweet, delicious 😁) poison to the human body.  When you drink alcohol, your body almost immediately begins a cascade of mechanisms to eliminate its harmful effects.  Alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream.  It gets shuttled to the liver where enzymes start to break it down.  Here it is converted into acetaldehyde which is then converted to acetate.  Acetaldehyde is toxic and the process of breaking it down is gated by the quantity of the enzymes that you have available and how well they are suited to actually cause this breakdown.  Acetaldehyde is theorized to be the main cause of both long term alcohol-caused damage and the dreaded ‘day after’ effects of drinking too much.

    Home Remedy

    Like everyone who drinks often, I have my own home remedy for making the next day be better than it could be.  I pretty much follow the Jim Koch (from Samuel Adams) pre-drinking ritual.  Make sure to do everything I can to stay hydrated during and after drinking.  First thing upon waking, take some B-Vitamins and down some electrolytes.  These things combined with never drinking on an empty stomach tend to do alright by me.  When I’m eating low carb, I noticed that it’s also best to stop that before drinking.  Something about having some carbs in my stomach seems to really help.  After drinking, I’ve become a big fan of using DHM.

    ZBiotics Review

    I had heard about ZBiotics on several podcasts that I listen to regularly.  The claims were strong and I was interested in trying it out.  The current routine that I follow has a lot of moving parts, and avoiding any aspect of it could definitely throw off your morning.  I reached out to the company, explained my interest and got a sample.

    What is ZBiotics?

    ZBiotics is the first probiotic that you drink before you drink.  It specifically consists of a genetically engineered probiotic designed to breakdown acetaldehyde. You drink a bottle of this up to a few hours before you first drink.  The bacteria then hang out in your gut for up to 18 hours decomposing acetaldehyde.  The theory is that this helps your liver do it’s job of getting rid of the harmful byproduct of alcohol metabolism faster.

    At first, I was skeptical… I tend to avoid “genetically engineered” anything.  Would this really be as good or better than what I was already doing?  Will there be any long term or strange side effects?  Without a doubt, I was going to be paying very close attention when using this.

    The ZBiotics Review ‘Test’

    I decided to test out ZBiotics on a Thursday night.  My plan was to take it an hour before I went out to visit some local breweries.  I wasn’t going to use anything from my normal ‘drinking stack’.  I was going to follow some general best practices:  Go out fed (with carbs) and occasionally drink water throughout the night.  Just following these practices alone would not necessarily guarantee a smooth morning the next day.

    The ‘Results’

    So I took the ZBiotics after I ate dinner.  It had a light lime taste, but wasn’t offensive.  I didn’t notice anything after consuming it and headed out for some drinks.  Throughout the night, I didn’t really notice anything different either.  If anything, I felt like I was drinking more.  After alternating between ZBiotics and my normal stack a few times, I think the reasoning for this is that I don’t feel as bloated when only taking ZBiotics.

    When I got home, I still felt fine.  I stayed up for a bit, drank some more water and then went to sleep.  I woke up the next day feeling fine.  Subjectively, I feel that I had had enough alcohol to make me feel otherwise.  I didn’t feel the need to resort to B vitamins and electrolytes upon waking.  Over the course of a few weeks, I continued to test.  I’d revert to my stack.  Next I’d use ZBiotics and sometimes I’d combine both.  ZBiotics seemed to always be additive.

    Conclusion

    So here we are months later with my ZBiotics review.  I’d say that for me, ZBiotics works.  I continue to use it (combined with my ‘drinking stack‘) when I know I plan on drinking a lot.  For me, this has often been while judging homebrew.  It would become an expensive habit if I used it every time I drank.  I tried to do a much more scientific comparison over the course of 3 weeks.  Every Friday I would drink the exact same beers in about the same amount of time.  One week I would use ZBiotics, one week I would do nothing special and the next I would try my stack.  Unfortunately, the brewery ran out of one of the beers I was using for testing on the third week.  So I can’t definitively say if ZBiotics alone is better than what I was doing before.  It is clear to me that it is better than doing ‘nothing’.  Based on my subjective testing, I prefer to combine both approaches.  There were a few times where I was feeling less than perfect the next day using just ZBiotics.  Adding the B Vitamins and electrolytes usually takes care of that though, so I’ll continue following this approach.  Have you used ZBiotics?  What was your experience?  If you’re interested, this link will provide a discount.  Let me know!

  • ScaleBlaster Review

    ScaleBlaster Review

    Every home that I’ve ever lived in has had hard water.  There are pros to having hard water, but there are also many cons.  The cons have led me to investigate ways of mitigating hard water, but this also has additional drawbacks.  I recently purchased and installed a ScaleBlaster.  Read on for my ScaleBlaster review.

    Why Care About Hard Water?

    Hard water tends to be high in calcium and magnesium.  Even though these usually make water taste better, they pose many problems when used in a home water system.  Most noticeable are limescale deposits on water fixtures.  This is visibly unsightly, but also leads to damage and a decrease in efficiency to the overall water system.  Hard water makes dissolving soaps more difficult.  This can make showers unpleasant and over time, can lead to damage to the fibers in the clothes that you are laundering using this water.  The lingering, unsightly residues are really the thing that I hate most about hard water.

    Mitigating Hard Water

    The most common way of mitigating hard water is through the use of a water softener.  A water softener is an appliance that uses ion exchange to replace calcium/magnesium ions with sodium ions.  Sounds great, right?  Well, this exchange of ions results in water that doesn’t taste as good.  Also, if you’re trying to avoid added sodium in your diet, you’ve now created a whole new mechanism for it to get into your body.  Many of the places where I’ve experienced hard water, I never really did anything to mitigate it and just dealt with the associated problems.

    The first home that I purchased had a water softener.  I liked not having the visible telltale signs of hard water, but I quickly got annoyed by having to replenish the ‘salt’ in this water softener on a regular basis.  I also noticed that the quality of my homebrew was drastically decreased.  Hops and malts were muted and the mouthfeel of my frequently brewed recipes was ‘off’.  Before this, I hadn’t really given much thought to water chemistry during my brew days.  After a bit of research and getting my ‘post-softener’ water tested, it was clear that this was likely the cause of my brewing woes.  I had one water tap that was pre-softener and I started using that for all of my brewing.

    My current home also came with a water softener.  One of the first things I did was setup the ability to completely bypass it so that with the flip of a few valves, I could have unadulterated water at any tap in the house.  This information will come in handy later.  When brewing, or filling my hot tub, I’d make sure to completely bypass the softener as well.  I still had that annoying problem of having to constantly load the softener with salt and thought that there had to be a better way.

    My ScaleBlaster Review

    Searching around for alternatives, I eventually discovered the ScaleBlaster.  I had my doubts, but finally pulled the trigger when there was a sale on one at Costco.

    What is the ScaleBlaster?

    The ScaleBlaster is a Made in the USA ‘electronic descaling device’.  You install it early on the incoming water line.  This install involves wire wrapping your water pipes in a very specific manner, hooking this wire up to the ScaleBlaster and then plugging the ScaleBlaster into a regular electrical outlet.  The device than produces an oscillating electronic field that changes the calcium molecules.  This causes the ions to precipitate or collide with each other, to the point that they no longer deposit and just come out the other end of your pipes.

    This sounded very interesting.  Technically, it wasn’t softening the water.  My water would still taste great.  I could brew with it.  Best of all, no need to reload with salt!  The ScaleBlaster promised to eliminate the visible problems of hard water.  Even better, it claimed that the alteration of the calcium ions would also allow the water to remove pre-existing scale deposits from my pipes and equipment.

    How did I test?

    Since the ScaleBlaster isn’t actually softening the water, I couldn’t test my water before and after to see how well it works.  Instead, I turned off the water softener for a few weeks before install.  I then took note of how the scale built up on my water fixtures.  Another great visual indicator came from my sprout growing process.  For growing sprouts, you need to run cold water over the top of the tray several times a day.  With the softener off, the top of the tray had noticeable scale development in between waterings.  Now that I had a few objective measurements in addition to the subjective ones, I was ready to begin.

    The Plan

    My plan was to install the ScaleBlaster, bypass the water softener and let it operate for two weeks in this state.  After this time, I was going to do a deep clean of all the fixtures and surfaces to remove the scale.  Then, I would run things for another two weeks and see how things compared to running without the water softener.

    Installation

    Installing the ScaleBlaster was straightforward, but fairly involved in order to make sure everything was perfect.  The biggest issue was the wire wrapping.  It took the better part of an afternoon to properly do the wire wrapping.  This was mostly because I was working in a tight space and had a difficult time perfecting a method to easily manipulate the several feet of wire that needed to be wrapped.  I placed the ScaleBlaster downstream of my existing water filter as recommended in the instructions.  This also allowed me to plug the ScaleBlaster into the same electrical outlet

    Conclusion

    It took a few days, but subjectively, I felt that the ScaleBlaster was working.  Long before doing the ‘deep clean’, I noticed that I was no longer seeing evidence of scale on my sprout trays.  After doing the deep clean, things actually stayed clean.  One annoying issue did develop though… a few toilets in my house started emitting a high frequency whine.  This usually occurred while water was running in other parts of the house.  We discovered that a slight jiggle of the bits inside the tank usually stopped this, but it would regularly come back.  Eventually, I did a deep clean of all components in the tank and this seems to have resolved the issue.

    So is the ScaleBlaster worth it?  It’s been over a month and I haven’t put the original water softener back into rotation.  I’ve read reviews online and some people with very hard water did not seem to have the same experience as me and either returned the ScaleBlaster or used a water softener in conjunction.  Personally, I’m happy with the current setup and knowing that I can easily add the water softener back into the mix if I need to do so.  Have you used the ScaleBlaster?  I’d love to hear about your experience and how you deal with hard water issues.

  • Viome Review

    Viome Review

    More and more research points to the importance of the gut microbiome on many areas of health.  In my quest for improving my fitness, I was hitting plateaus that I suspected could have been related to a least than ideal gut microbiome.  I didn’t want to blindly start trying to ‘improve’ something that I wasn’t completely convinced was lacking, so I started looking for ways to confirm my suspicions.  That’s when I came across Viome.  Read on for my Viome Review.

    What is Viome?

    Viome is an AI-powered health insight platform that bases it’s recommendations on analyzing your gut health.  They offer several different tests that you can choose from with corresponding levels of detailed insights.  Like many of these platforms, they offer a personalized supplement regime based on your results.

    The Tests

    Viome offers three tests in order of increasing cost and number of health scores analyzed:

    Gut Intelligence™ Test – Stool only test

    Health Intelligence™ Test – Stool and blood test

    Full Body Intelligence™ Test – Stool, blood and saliva test

    How it Works

    The samples for all of the tests can be collected at home… no lab visit required!  The instructions for doing so are detailed and presented in a way that makes it easy for anyone to accomplish.  Everything for collecting the samples is included in your kit.  Once you receive it, you need to register it via the mobile app or the website.  You can then collect your samples and send them back to Viome with the included prepaid package.  Your results will then appear in the app within 2 – 3 weeks.  While waiting for your results, you’ll need to complete a series of questionnaires which are used to inform your results.

    The Platform

    Unlike many of these platforms, both the mobile app and website contain the full suite of tools and is also laid out in the same fashion.  The main sections include: Home, Nutrition, Scores, Shop and More.

    Home

    The ‘Home’ section is basically a dashboard that contains bits of information from all of the other sections.  You’ll get a daily ‘superfood’ recommendation and can see the details of your personalized supplement formula.  This section also contains your overall health profile which highlights the number of scores that ‘need improvement’.  You will also see a listing of your ‘Avoid foods’ and ‘Superfoods’.  Finally, there are links to relevant webinars and blog posts.

    Nutrition

    This section is subdivided into two: Your Foods and Your Supplements.  Foods are personalized to your results and labeled Superfood, Enjoy, Minimize and Avoid.  Clicking on individual superfoods and Avoid foods will show information about why you should include/exclude them, along with links to relevant published research.  The list of Supplements are based on the personalized supplement that Viome recommends for you.  Each supplement is displayed with the amounts to be taken per day.  Clicking on each one provides some background information on what the supplement does, identifies the ‘Scores’ that the supplement should positively impact and provides links to published studies on the supplement.

    Scores

    Scores shows your Health, Functional and Pathway Activities scores.  Health scores are for very broad things like Oral Health or Gut Health.  Functional scores represent things like Breath Odor and Metabolic Fitness.  Pathway Activity scores are for biochemical reactions that produce beneficial or harmful molecules.  Each of the scores is a numerical number with a range that represents Not Optimal, Average or Good scores.  Clicking on a score provides a brief overview of what the score represents, provides links to any relevant published studies and allows you to ‘Share’ the results via email.  Many of the scores also show the relevant percentage of Viome users who share scores in that range.  You can read much more about Viome Scores here.

    Shop

    Self explanatory… from this section, you can purchase your personalized supplement formula and additional tests.  Like many of these services, one test isn’t usually enough.  You’ll want to repeat the test after making changes to your nutrition to see if you’re improving your non-optimal scores.

    More

    This section contains your settings, questionnaire results and the ability to download your results.  There are also links to blog posts and videos that you can reference for collecting samples and interpreting your results.

    Viome Review

    I opted to go for the Full Body Intelligence™ Test.  This is Viome’s most comprehensive and consists of more than 50 Health Scores based on a Stool, blood and saliva sample.  Collecting all the samples was very straightforward and not as horrifying as it might sound at first glance.  I

    Results

    It took closer to 3 weeks until I got my results, but it gave me plenty of time to complete all of the questionnaires.  I was definitely surprised by many of my results.  The most notable surprises for me included:

    • Significantly differing biological age score compared to those that I’ve observed from other services.
    • A large number of my ‘Avoid’ foods were categorized as such in order to improve scores that I’m not convinced that I really have an issue with based on other testing and asking unbiased third parties.  Many of these foods just happen to be things that I eat often and LOVE.
    • Confirmation on many of the supplements that I was already taking based on other testing results.
    • Confirmation on some of the issues that I expected to have which led me to use the Viome test in the first place.

    Supplements

    It’s clear that the whole platform and results are very much tailored to encourage you to purchase the personalize supplement stack.  I’m not a fan of the ‘shotgun’ approach to supplementation, so I’m not really the target market for this type of product.  Looking at the details however, leads me to believe that the approach to personalization used by Viome seems to be better than many of the other services that I’ve used that do this.

    Areas for Improvement

    For the most part, Viome did provide a lot of valuable information and was a good starting point for investigating ways of mitigating some of the issues that led to me discovering this platform in the first place.  There were a few things that I did not like:

    Inconsistent Scoring

    A few of my scores did not have a numeric value.  It just said that I was in the ‘Not Optimal’ range.  I’m a numbers guy, so if I’m going to invest the effort into taking multiple tests and work on ‘improving’, I need to be able to see that number improve from test to test.

    Rationale

    The foods labeled ‘Minimize’ and ‘Enjoy’ did not have any rationale for doing so.  I’m ok with this for those in the ‘Enjoy’ category, but I’d like to know more about why I should minimize others.  Is it because of one of the scores that I legitimately feel is in a not optimal range? or is it because of one of the ones that I disagree with Viome’s analysis?

    For the foods/supplements that have rationale behind them, it was great to see why they were recommended and what scores that are meant to impact.  What would be even more valuable for me, is the ability to navigate from the scores that I want to optimize and see all of the recommendations for doing so.

    Potential Bias

    Almost everyone that I’ve spoken to that’s done this test has seen something that I’ve noticed.  Many of the foods that they eat most frequently and enjoy show up in their minimize/avoid lists.  Often there isn’t a rationale tied to an obvious non-optimal score for why this is so.  This may indicate some bias based on how these foods impact your microbiome.  I’m interested in seeing how these recommendations evolve with subsequent tests while experimenting with removing or continuing to use these foods.

    Conclusion

    Overall, I’m glad that I used Viome and I look forward to seeing it evolve in the future.  Compared to other similar services I’ve used, Viome is much more nutrition and supplement focused.  Using Viome for identifying non-optimal scores and nutritional solutions for addressing them was great.  It’s important though to use this as a starting point for your own research.  There are many lifestyle choices that can also be used to address many of these scores.  Focusing on a holistic approach to improving these is probably best long term.  Have you used Viome?  If so, I’d like to hear about your experience.  If you’re interested in trying Viome for yourself, use this link for a discount on your tests!

     

     

     

     

  • Examine.com/Examine+ Review

    Examine.com/Examine+ Review

    I often get a common set of questions after making new ‘Health’ posts or reviews. “How do you research publications related to what you’re writing about?”  “How do you determine the experiments you conduct in order to reach your goals?”  Part of the answer to both of these questions is: Examine.com/Examine+.  Read on for my Examine review.

    What is Examine.com?

    What exactly is Examine.com?  Their mission statement states it very simply.  “Examine analyzes and summarizes the latest scientific research to help you be healthier.”  In reality, Examine.com is the largest database of nutrition and supplement research on the internet.

    How is Examine Organized?

    Examine.com’s main structural element is 25 broad health categories.  Within each of these health categories there are several conditions, interventions and outcomes.  All of these items as well as individual research paper titles are indexed and searchable.

    Categories

    Each Category page is the top level grouping keeping all related FAQs and studies in one place.  Categories mostly exist to make navigating Examine.com easier.

    Conditions

    Conditions can be actual diagnosed health conditions (Hypothyroidism) or goals (Increase Focus).  Goals can exist in multiple categories.

    Interventions

    Interventions are anything that can be tested in a trial.  This is often a specific supplement or practice.

    Outcomes

    Outcomes are specific measurable pieces of data in trials that are used to measure if a specific intervention works.

    What do I like about Examine.com?

    Some things that I love about this organization approach include:

    • It allows you to easily cross reference interventions so that you can easily see which conditions/outcomes each one may impact.  I use this to tweak my own routines based on how something that might be positive for one condition could be detrimental for another.
    • By cross referencing outcomes that have been positive for conditions, you can hypothesize other interventions that might work that don’t currently have published research on them.
    • With awareness of all the conditions that you suffer from that require improvement, you can easily rule out and create a prioritized list of the interventions that are likely to be most effective for you.

    But the organization isn’t the only thing that I like about Examine.com.

    Transparency

    Each piece of information provided on Examine.com references the sources that it is gleaned from.  Opinions are stated as such.  Studies that are missing crucial information that the reader should be aware of are clearly identified.  Anyone who isn’t clear on why this is so important should checkout the extensive reasoning from Dr. Peter Attia.

    Freely Available

    Even before I became a lifetime Examine+ member, I was making extensive use of Examine.com.  This is because all of the information contained in its database is freely available.

    Independence

    Examine.com does not accept funding from outside sources.  Their revenue is not dependent upon pageviews or products sold.  This allows them to avoid sensationalism and maintain a reasonably unbiased viewpoint.  Examine started because it was impossible to find this information in this format at the time.  Examine derives all of their funding from Examine+.

    What is Examine+?

    Examine+ is the unlock of everything on the Examine.com site.  While all of the FAQs are free and you can access most of the database for free, an Examine+ membership allows you to take your research further.  With an Examine+ subscription you unlock the following additional features:

    Supplement Guides

    Plain language information on supplements that cut through all the hype.  Lists the supplements that are likely to work and which ones don’t have the research backing or may be harmful for different conditions.  All referenced to the studies where the information came from.

    Examine Database

    Examine+ also fully unlocks the power of the Examine Database.  All the deep linking between the organizational features and search capabilities are at your fingertips.  All interventions list every tested outcome without the need to go searching on your own.  The same is true for conditions.  They are now linked to all relevant interventions contained in the database.  While you could find much of this same information with the free product, this is an enormous time saver.

    Personalized Research Feed

    With Examine+ you can also create a personalized research feed that contains summaries of all new summaries related to the health categories that are of interest to you.  This allows you to keep an eye on the latest research so that you can reevaluate any action that you may have taken based on prior information.

    Examine Review Conclusion

    Since I mentioned that I am an Examine+ user, it’s probably clear that I feel favorably about this product.  The reality is that I’ve been using Examine.com/Examine+ as my ‘top of the funnel’ research tool for years.  I really haven’t found anything better that works for me.  If you liked what you read in this Examine review and aren’t already using it, try it out!  Interested in becoming an Examine+ member?  I’d appreciate it if you used my link to sign up.