AI scan of 150,000 Reddit posts finds appetite-increase reports for unapproved diet drug
A University of Pennsylvania research team used AI to analyze nearly 150,000 Reddit posts and comments from about 40,000 users, cataloguing symptoms and side effects reported for Retatrutide, a weight-loss drug that has not been approved. Among comments with identifiable symptoms, increased appetite was the most commonly reported reaction — a distribution that differs sharply from the drug's phase 2 trial side effects, which were mainly gastrointestinal. The study was published in JAMA Network Open; co-author Neil Sehgal called it a first glimpse of real-world experience with a drug that has not completed clinical trials, while the team cautioned that community reports cannot prove causation or substitute for trial evidence, and that Reddit's sample has limitations.
The researchers say such AI-derived leads are best treated as a starting point for public-health and drug-safety research rather than a final conclusion.
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美國賓州大學研究團隊運用人工智慧（AI），分析近 15 萬則來自知名論壇 Reddit 的貼文與留言，試圖了解使用者對尚未獲准上市的減重藥物 Retatrutide 的實際回饋。這項研究涵蓋了約 4 萬名使用者，是醫界首度以系統化方式，整理這款「灰色市場」藥物在網路社群中被提及的症狀與副作用。
研究結果顯示，在能辨識出具體症狀的留言中，網友最常通報的反應竟然是「食慾增加」。這與 Retatrutide 在第二期臨床試驗中，以腸胃道不適為主的副作用分布大不相同。研究人員強調，這種差異並不代表社群回報能直接證明藥物的因果關係，也不能作為臨床試驗的替代證據；不過，AI 的確能從龐大且非結構化的討論中，挖掘出值得進一步追查的數據模式。
#University of Pennsylvania#Reddit#Retatrutide#JAMA Network Open