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Ask HN: How to track medical research progress?

1 points by gregorygoc ↗ HN
I’m quite frustrated because I always get excited when I read about some medical breakthrough on the news and then not hear about it again in like “forever”. I’m particularly interested in America’s number one killer - heart disease. Do you know any startups targeting this monster? Can I, a mortal, track progress of a particular research I’m interested in?

3 comments

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gus_massa
I have bad news for you. Just assume that they are not reliable and don't get exited. Ignore the breakthrough news, they are probably badly reported in the press article, and the original article is probably an overhyped preliminary trial.

Some trick to recognize good articles are:

* It's five year old (preferably 10), and has been reproduced with consistent result an extended by others independent research groups.

* Have a preregister trial, with a randomized control group, and it is double blind. (A I missing something?)

JonGarfield
If you want a to track medical research the only way to get reliable information is to read the actual medical literature. Every single mass media report on a study gets at least some aspects of the research wrong (sometimes ridiculously so). Also the mass media has a terrible track record on following up initial reports when subsequent studies are done.

The best layman's source I have found for health news is the Nutrition Action newsletter. They don't take advertising, they translate (fairly accurately) medical research into layman's terms, they give you a clue as to how to act on it and they DO follow up on subsequent studies that the mass media ignores. The subscription is also very affordable (~$25USD I believe).

Edit: I think one of the reasons that their health reporting is more accurate is that they use either subject matter experts or writers that at least have a science background rather than just an interest in science. It doesn't keep them from getting anything wrong, but it definitely cuts the errors down considerably.

gregorygoc
Are they focused strictly on nutrition or do they also track more exotic research - for example CRISPR? It’s hard to tell from their website.