AI scans 400,000 Reddit posts to flag overlooked GLP-1 side effectsby University of Pennsylvania edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan By using AI to analyze more than 400,000 Reddit posts, Penn researchers have identified patient-reported symptoms associated with GLP-1s, the popular weight-loss and diabetes drugs semaglutide and tirzepatide, that may not be fully captured in clinical trials or regulatory documents. The new study, published in Nature Health, covers more than half a decade of posts from nearly 70,000 Reddit users and highlights two main classes of symptoms that warrant further study: reproductive symptoms, including irregular menstrual cycles, and temperature-related complaints, such as chills and hot flashes. "Some of the side effects we found, like nausea, are well known, and that shows that the method is picking up a real signal," says Sharath Chandra Guntuku, Research Associate Professor in Computer and Information Science (CIS) at Penn Engineering and the study's senior author. "The underreported symptoms are leads that came from patients themselves, unprompted, and clinicians could potentially pay attention to them." "Clinical trials generally identify the most dangerous side effects of drugs," adds Lyle Ungar, Professor in CIS and a co-author on the study. "But they can fail to find what symptoms patients are most concerned about; even though social media is not necessarily representative, a large collection of posts may reflect additional concerns." The researchers caution that their findings are not causal. "We can't say that GLP-1s are actually causing these symptoms," notes Neil Sehgal, the study's first author and a doctoral student in CIS advised by Guntuku and Ungar. "But nearly 4% of the Reddit users in our sample reported menstrual irregularities, which would be even higher in a female-only sample. We think that's a signal worth investigating." Studying social media for healthIn 2011, Ungar participated in one of the earliest efforts to mine online, user-created content for information about drugs' adverse effects. "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.) "Clinical trials are the gold standard, but by design, they are slow," says Guntuku. "This is not a replacement for trials, but it can move much faster, and that speed matters when a drug goes from niche to mainstream almost overnight." Leveraging AI to analyze social mediaUntil now, the most challenging part of this process, which Guntuku calls "computational social listening," has been scale. Because users vary in how they describe their symptoms, the effort required to map individual social media posts to language in the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA), which clinicians use to describe symptoms, limited the amount of data this approach could handle. Now, large language models like GPT or Gemini have enabled the systematic analysis of social media posts at an unprecedented scale. "Large language models have made it possible to do this kind of analysis much faster with a level of standardization that could be difficult to achieve before," says Sehgal. Unreported symptomsWhile the population the researchers studied is admittedly not representative—Reddit users are younger, more likely to be male and disproportionately based in the United States—the symptoms described in their collective accounts largely match the known side effects of semaglutide and tirzepatide: about 44% of users in the study described at least one side effect, most commonly some form of gastrointestinal distress. What stood out was the nontrivial percentage of users who reported symptoms that may not be fully reflected in current drug labeling or routine adverse-event reporting. Nearly 4% of users who reported side effects described reproductive symptoms, including menstrual changes such as intermenstrual bleeding, heavy bleeding, and irregular cycles. Others reported temperature-related complaints, such as chills, feeling cold, hot flashes, and fever-like symptoms. In addition, fatigue ranked as the second most common complaint among Reddit users, despite reaching reporting thresholds in relatively few clinical trials. "These drugs are thought to work by engaging part of the brain called the hypothalamus, which helps regulate a wide variety of hormones," says Jena Shaw Tronieri, Senior Research Investigator at Penn's Center for Weight and Eating Disorders and a co-author of the study. "That doesn't mean the medications are necessarily causing these symptoms, but it could suggest that reports of menstrual changes and body temperature fluctuations are worth studying more systematically." Future directionsIn 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 team also hopes to expand the work beyond Reddit and beyond English-language communities to test whether the same patterns appear across different platforms and populations. "We don't really know yet whether what we're seeing on Reddit reflects the experience of GLP-1 users globally, or whether it's particular to the kind of person who posts on Reddit in the United States," Ungar says. Ultimately, the researchers believe this kind of rapid, AI-assisted social media analysis could become a useful way to spot early warning signs around emerging drugs and wellness trends. For substances that trend quickly online, especially those sold in loosely regulated or unregulated markets, like injectable peptides, patient discussions on platforms like Reddit and TikTok may offer one of the earliest clues to what users are actually experiencing. "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. ARTICLE SOURCE: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-04-ai-scans-reddit-flag-overlooked.html
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Another thread on how difficult it can be to 'spread the word' or give 'my testimony' on the benefits of eating carnivore.
Last night we went to a local bar in a small town not too far from here. One of our friend's has a band and they have since moved to Nashville but are home now for a stretch. Their daughter who is pursuing a solo career in Nashville was home as well and it was a family affair of really good music.
Babbling. In between sets or songs, the 'old people' were discussing all their ailments. As each told of their medical issues my wife and eye would make eye contact, and I would have a little smile. Then the next, and then the next. My buddy asked why, so my wife explained I was not laughing at their issues, but it was an inside joke between my wife and me. Every time I hear of someone getting sick, discovering an "aging issue", dieting/weight loss, etc. etc. I say to my wife "Carnivore Diet". To the point now it is a running joke.
To show how far it goes last week she came home from work and told me the Jeep's check engine light came on and the engine had a minor stalling at takeoff. I told her it would easily be solved with the 'carnivore diet'. She is about tired of hearing 'carnivore'. LOL
Again, babbling on. I was telling our table how many positives I have had with doing not much more than switching my diet. It is a hard sell to tell people that what you eat is only a drop in the bucket compared to the effects of 'what you stop eating'. Strange concept for most. And true to form, my niece had her phone out 'fact checking' just about my every statement. "I can eat all the ribeye I want and drink water, from that I will lose weight and have a better metabolic health?" And when I said YES, our table was fully engulfed.
Maybe an hour or so answering questions the best I could, having my niece fact check and report back to the table that I was not near as crazy in the head as I sounded.
My wife is on another attempt and she is about 7 days in of eating carnivore/strict carnivore and did the immediate switch to one meal a day (I think it is better to sort of let that happen on its own, but for her I think it is more of a diet hack than a long-term change, so we are rolling with her new plan). As soon as she said she had lost 6lbs in a week the other ladies at the table are all carnivores starting today.
Maybe til lunch, or supper, LOL but hopefully they will give it a try.
Waiting for the gym to open and passing the time.
Hope everyone has a great weekend.
Scott