AI analyzes Reddit posts to find underreported GLP-1 side effects

Studying social media for health

"Online patient communities work a lot like a neighborhood grapevine," says Ungar. "People who are living with these medications are swapping notes with each other in real time, sharing experiences that rarely make it into a doctor's office visit or an official report."

In the years since, social media use has only grown, making data from these platforms increasingly promising as a source of information about the side effects of medications, even as the platforms themselves have made accessing the data more difficult. (Guntuku has also published research on strategies for adapting to changes in platform access.)

Leveraging AI to analyze social media

Unreported symptoms 

In addition, fatigue ranked as the second most common complaint among Reddit users, despite reaching reporting thresholds in relatively few clinical trials.

Future directions

In the near term, the researchers hope their findings will encourage clinicians and researchers to take a closer look at the side effects patients are discussing online. "They're clearly on patients' minds, and that's worth paying attention to," says Sehgal.

"The whole point of this kind of approach is that it can move quickly, and that's exactly when it's most valuable," says Guntuku.

Source:

University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science

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