“Healthy people have a thousand wishes, while sick people have just one.”
We’ve had about 60 total team members since Examine was founded in 2011. Most are still on the team.
Four of those team members would consider giving everything they have to feel better:
- One had a stroke that caused a variety of persistent, sucky effects
- One has severe myalgic encephalomyelitis (chronic fatigue syndrome)
- One has widespread joint pain from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome
- One has severe chronic depression in addition to other health issues
When you’re feeling consistently yucky and there’s no great treatments available, it can be hard to create brainspace for typical goals: cultivate relationships, pursue your ambitions and hobbies, get fit, and so on.
I know that some of you can relate to this. Many others of our readers have close family or friends who can relate. This email might even bring up unpleasant emotions for you. I’m sorry for springing this on you in your inbox. But according to my armchair psychiatry, unpleasant emotions about health can sometimes be revealing. To illustrate that, here’s a salient short story:
On my birthday in 2012, I was in a theater watching the first Avengers movie. There was a scene where a gargantuan alien enemy is about to attack the team.
The Avengers counted on Dr. Bruce Banner to get angry and turn into the mighty Hulk, but the enemy was nearly on top of them and Banner hadn’t transformed yet. Would he be able to gather enough anger to bring out the Hulk?
Captain America quips, “Dr. Banner, now might be a really good time for you to get angry.”
In a legendary superhero moment, Banner replies “That’s my secret Cap … I’m always angry.” He then transforms into the Hulk and kicks some giant alien butt.
I shed one solitary tear. What the heck happened?? I’d never cried during a movie before, and I definitely couldn’t relate to Banner’s rage.
But Banner had a secret that felt all too familiar: he consistently felt unease, in a way that his peers couldn’t relate to and he rarely communicated. The unease builds and builds, without a good way to release it. I deal with a joint pain condition rather than a gamma radiation induced monster bottled up inside, yet the scene resonated, and it resonated hard.
If you have a tough health condition or double-edged mutant powers, the bad news is Examine probably can’t magically solve your issues. If only it were that easy! Maybe I just need to gather more Infinity Stones …
The good news is that we occasionally hear from Examine readers who have been helped in amazing ways by evidence and other subtle yet still impactful ways. (You should see some of the touching emails we get.) Just know that we’ll be working harder on intervention page updates in 2024 than ever before, so that you’ll at least have new evidence to consider.
Examine will always analyze research on a wide variety of topics, but we also want to get a baseline sense of what our readers want most. Click a button that most applies to you:
- I’d like to improve a health condition that can feel all-consuming, like those mentioned earlier.
- I’d like to improve or prevent a health condition that’s not all-consuming like those mentioned earlier.
- I’m looking to optimize aspects of health like cognition, sleep, or aesthetics.
- I’m looking to lose weight, get ripped, or improve athletic performance.
- I mostly read Examine to help patients and clients, not myself or friends and family.
If you’re fairly healthy or looking to get ripped, don’t feel bad! Life is hard in a million ways that don’t have to do with health. It’s not at all frivolous to want to look and feel better.
By the way, I’ll try to adjust the results we get based on the likelihood of different types of people reading all the way through this email to the clickable buttons. After all, the email wasn’t about getting ripped, so fewer people who match that goal will have read all the way through. Can’t have bias creep into the process … it’s not the Examine way!
Sincerely,
Kamal Patel
Co-founder, Examine