#43

I get the feeling some people dislike 1,000 post threads that would take a solid week to read though…

Yes, I am not the most active of moderators… But will try to break threads up to less than a 24 hour reading time.

And the coming ai integration should make things easier on new readers…

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#44

Sermo, AI Summary Agent, Rapamycin Blood Work database and Case Studies:

Has anyone (doctor or medical researcher) tried Sermo lately? I used to have access to Sermo and I quite liked the website’s design but that was many years’ ago. I would assume they have kept up with searchability and indexing part of their site. Sermo is mainly a case study website participated by doctors.

Sometimes I wish to have the ability to apply an AI agent on top of a thread to summarize the key points or input, without having to read everything posted there.

I do think posting blood results is a great idea and to mine the database as this is probably the largest rapamycin human data pool there is.

Lastly, I think it needs to make it “personal” to have more engagement or attract more users as then we would have unique content and increased practical value. What I meant by that is if we all share personally particulars like conditions and medications, why and how then we can all follow it up like case studies, which is what Sermo excel. Someone presents a case, doctors around the world give their diagnosis and input. There are usually follow up by the case originating doctor so it’s a feedback loop that benefits all.

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#45

Good to know. Even if these may not be immediately/quickly addressable, I think having the fingerprint or accumulating opinions on this will help keep it closer to top of mind for everyone. Hence why I even posted on this topic. Although I’m no moderator or forefront user, I’ll be looking more on this topic.

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#46

I never did address the dashboard aspect you brought up. I think it is an interesting idea and could absolutely be useful if you want to look something up or aggregate findings systematically. My comment was definitely tangential (sorry about that) and focused on user-to-user engagement, conversation, consideration of ideas, in a “forum” setting which is something I am particularly interested in (and have moderated elsewhere). I like your idea and am glad you posted about it. With the way this site is attracting more and more people something of that nature would be very helpful.

#47

And that is why Rejuvenation Olympics uses one testing company and uses an API to pull the data directly so there is no manipulation of the data.

One source for data and one test, apples to apples is the only way to do this.

The test they settled on is the Dunedin Pace algo and it’s pretty robust for what it measures.

It looks like they will be adding the new SymphonyAge algo from Tru and pulling that data directly as well.

https://www.trudiagnostic.com/symphony-age

Of course there are many other tests but unless it’s managed properly, what you fear related to manipulation, bots and spam will destroy the integrity and usefulness of the data. Like Vaers

Fundamentally what is useful today for the masses is to see trends, which interventions can affect a trend en-masse. This is very different from learning what affects my personal trends and “absolute” measurements.

Mass population studies are very revealing.

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#48

I propose we have a topic or thread for case files where we can discuss what medications we are on and why, if it worked or didn’t, and the reason for it. Sermo is very helpful for those discussions.

For instance, the reason I started rapamycin is that I have had pretty severe eczema for many years, which then turned into an eczema/psoriasis combo. My main arsenal for years was topical cortisone, which didn’t really help sustainably. Sometimes I have had to use oral prednisone in the range of 5 to 10mg to get it under control, which obviously is not a good long-term solution due to prednisone’s negative profile overall. I then convinced my doctor to try rapamycin as I have concluded that my eczema/psoriasis is due to my overactive immune system (I am also allergic to dust mites, which are literally everywhere in the city, and I am also a gardener). The bottom line is that rapamycin seems to have calmed my immune system enough that my eczema/psoriasis have improved by 80% or better. I am also thankful my gums have improved significantly, plus reduced joint pains. Other improvements include mental clarity, more energy, and the disappearance of mild hand arthritis. I have done blood work regularly; it has not changed my lipid profile but seems to have slightly increased my HbA1c (from 4.9 to 5.1).

I am on a dose of 6 to 8 mg per week. I split them into two doses out of consideration of not overly suppressing mTOR or my immune system. I was on 1mg daily for quite a while. I can’t tell the difference though.

What medications that you are on and why? How is working for you? Is it an optimal medication for you conditions? Would be nice we can actually discuss our own medical situation and kind of having our own Sermo going. We all have a chess board of medications, while sometimes less is more but I have largely preferred the approach of multiple medications at low dose that working on various receptors/pathways so to cover all the basis.

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#49

Firstly, I really appreciate the soft touch administration of this site. For me, its simplicity delivers on the 80/20 rule. I get 80% of what I want with 20% of the effort.

Sure, there is some free wheeling that causes “Topic” bloat, which is exacerbated by bad actors making inflammatory or rude comments, but these moments are fleeting thanks to #RapAdmin.

The most difficult and complex aspect of the site, is to manage the size, performance and navigation of increasing data narrative and more members.

An AI system to reduce the “noise” would be very attractive!

It is possible to create categorised taxonomies of similar and/or related topics. There are W3C initiatives, ie SKOS, that may be helpful but the work will take quite a bit of effort.

Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) is an OWL ontology, developed using W3C semantic standards. It provides a way to represent controlled vocabularies, taxonomies and thesauri. In a basic sense, SKOS could be used to extract entity and nomenclature attributes from textual data and classify this into categorised taxonomies ie tree structures.

Unfortunately, improving the site 20% will likely take 80% more effort.

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#50

Just sharing what I’ve been playing around with for fun.

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