I think modern medicine (including diagnostics) has a woefully inadequate concept of "deficiency" centered around specific disease states. Similarly to dietary recommendations, there's a very big gap between "what does the body need to even function" and "what promotes optimal functioning."
I disagree that modern medicine has an inadequate concept of "deficiency." Insofar as we are bad at making recommendations for optimal function v.s. curing disease, it is because it is harder to gather evidence for the former: smaller effect sizes, more variance between people, and so on.
I still vividly recall the horror on my medical friend's faces when I first enthused to them about the possibilities of personalized medicine (by which I had in mind teaching your own immune system to fight your cancer cells, etc). They are in a constant war against woo, and understandably focus on treatments that have at least some proven effect across as wide a cross-section of the population as possible.
That's interesting. Cancer immunotherapy has been in development within the medical establishment for decades at this point - I interned in an academic immunology lab in 2004, working on a small related project, and it was hardly new then. Seems like the least horror-inducing example you might have picked.
Edit to add, way back in 2015 I had a conversation with a biologist coworker about the future of medicine, and she brought up personalized medicine. My first response back then was, almost verbatim, "Ok, so when I go the the doctor in 2050 and she pulls up a copy of my genome and my latest microbiome scan, is the conversation more about 'Given your health and biology, you should make these lifestyle changes' or 'Given your health and lifestyle, here are some interventions we should consider.'" Her response was, "Oh good, you already know how this story goes."
The idea that we wouldn't have personalized medicine in the future was just not a possibility we thought likely enough to discuss.
You second sentence, I agree with. Your first, sentence, I don't.
And I don't mean to imply that the traditional concept is even a mistake. It's probably the best we could have done, as a matter of historical process. The field of 'how a human body works' is just too complicated for a human mind to hold, and doctors' time and expertise are too expensive to put in enough time and effort to actually solving the full, general problem of personalized health optimization.
I'm hopeful AI can help. A few conversations with last year's LLMs about my own health (in which I tried my best to avoid leading prompts and not direct too much) led to the AI independently suggesting many of the same practices and interventions I'd arrived at after a decade of personal experimentation (many of which my doctors had been skeptical of), refuting a few others, and suggesting a few extras to try. Overall success rate well above chance, overall evidentiary support much lower than medical practice would ever accept.
I found a different sleep-related Vitamin. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what it is. I got a SpectraCell test and then started taking everything the nutritionist said I should take based on those results, simultaneously. So it's probably one or more of those. But I went from often needing as many as twelve hours of sleep to something more like nine, sometimes less, and falling asleep is easier too.
So after reading that I grabbed my new pills, and took them, and …
My body and mind flooded with an overwhelming sense of relaxation and ease. It was so much I could hardly move. It’s like I got hit with a fluffy relaxation and well-being hammer.
Per my recent post, Don't be the vitamin B guy, I am compelled to ask if you have done a blinded test of glycine. Given how dramatic you claim the effects to be, it should be easy to validate your results. I'd be happy to suggest a more detailed methodology if you are interested.
If the effect is placebo, then I do not want to disturb it right now and lose the benefits. I hope my write up was candid enough about the various cognitive biases and experiential benefits I'm getting, that people will interpret it as such.
I'm open to testing it at some later date when I can more easily afford to lose whatever amount of placebo effect I may be under (which I do believe may be 0, but I also believe introspection cannot access this accurately)
What setup would you suggest?
PS: I did wait with reporting on anything till 6 months later, exactly because I wasn't sure what anyway should be inferring from my personal experience being this extreme. But the effect surviving this long has been enough a signal for me that I felt comfortable sharing a candid account.
TL;Dr: 10g/day of glycine for 6 months has significantly improved my sleep quality and tolerance for sleep deprivation.
My dear friend, have you heard of the Vitamin?
The Vitamin has been foretold in ancient legends as the deliverer of all who suffer mysterious ailments. The Vitamin has been foretold on … Tumblr:
Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what your Vitamin will be, but beyond all reasonable expectation I found mine in the shape of the simplest amino acid - Glycine is in almost everything you eat, your body makes it too, and still you might not have enough.
I’d like to pretend I deeply researched this uncommon health intervention before gallivanting off to Nootropics Adventure Land, but actually I just regularly prompt every new AI model with my whole sleep dealio cause oh-my-god could I please just need less sleep already?
Then one day, Opus 4.6 was released, and I was very sleep deprived, as happens to me frequently. 8 hours of sleep will do that to
youme.And so I again dumped my medical history into this new Claude and … lo and behold - our lord and savior emerged:
Opus 4.6 has a special place in my heart ever since 10 minutes ago when I looked up which Claude gave me the advice that changed my life
So I ordered glycine the same day. And then promptly forgot about it.
Sleep deprivation,
not even onceabout 40-80% of my life.Then a few days later an essay titled “Is fever a symptom of glycine deficiency?” goes up on LessWrong.
Oh boy was that a strange read.
You know who had a fever?
24-year old me who had been a vegetarian for 2 years, and ended up with 3 solid months of fever. I got my blood tested every which way to Sunday, and the doctor could not find any deficiencies nor any other causes of fatigue, fever, or any other f-word.
Now 3 months of fever sucks, and I was sleeping much of it, and eventually I was like … you know … I could … maybe … try … the obvious thing and reset my diet and eat loads of meat.
After 2 weeks my fever went away and I felt great. I’ve been a very conflicted carnivore ever since. After reading that essay, I looked up sources of glycine, and guess what? Various meat products are absolutely stacked with it.
So after reading that I grabbed my new pills, and took them, and …
My body and mind flooded with an overwhelming sense of relaxation and ease. It was so much I could hardly move. It’s like I got hit with a fluffy relaxation and well-being hammer.
This probably won’t happen to you. This probably doesn’t happen to anyone. But it happened to me and it made Claude so worried to boot, bless their heart.
To me it felt too good to overly mind, and over the course of a couple of weeks I got used to the effect, and now I just feel a pleasant sense of relaxation in the evening shortly after taking my dose.
Some nights I lie tossing and turning in bed, till I realize I forgot my glycine. I swear by the power of the God of Availability Bias, that’s how much it helps!
Anyway, unfortunately, I still need 10 hours of sleep.
But.
First of all, sleep deprivation hits me a lot less than before, and actually taking my 10 hours feels a lot better. Glycine has made sleeping pleasurable and good for me. And consequently, my mood is much improved and my energy levels are higher. Claude and Chat tell me this is to be expected.
And yet I cannot overstate how much glycine has helped me. It has been the number one best drug I’ve ever taken by a mile, barring … antibiotics. Antibiotics are strictly better. But you know. They do keep you from literally dying and stuff. Pretty stiff competition there.
Anyway, it’s been 6 months now, and the effects have lasted.
Glycine is clearly my Vitamin. To the point that my friends have sent me this:
And this:
And honestly, if someone tells me about a problem vaguely sleep or stress related, I will sit there biting my tongue till my willpower eventually takes a hike and I whisper softly:
Have you tried glycine?
If you want to give it a whirl, it’s easy to find online. I take 5 grams with breakfast and 5 grams with dinner. If you try it, let me know how it goes in the comments. Maybe it’s someone else’s Vitamin too.
Facts Only
* The author disagrees with the claim that modern medicine has an inadequate concept of "deficiency," agreeing that gathering evidence for optimal function is more difficult due to smaller effect sizes and variance.
* The author recalls a conversation in 2015 where a coworker discussed personalized medicine, and the initial response suggested awareness of the future trajectory.
* Cancer immunotherapy had been in development within the medical establishment for decades before the author's internship in 2004.
* An LLM interaction led to the suggestion of health practices that aligned with personal experimentation.
* The author experimented with a sleep-related Vitamin, ultimately finding glycine through a SpectraCell test and subsequent nutritional advice.
* Taking glycine for six months significantly improved sleep quality and tolerance for sleep deprivation.
* The author experienced an overwhelming sense of relaxation and ease after taking the supplements.
* A follow-up discussion about glycine suggested its role as an amino acid present in food, implying a potential deficiency if intake is insufficient.
* Subsequent experience involved a change from needing twelve hours of sleep to nine or less, with easier sleep onset.
Executive Summary
Full Take
The narrative traces a tension between the established, broad framework of medicine and the aspirational goal of personalized optimization. The initial skepticism regarding deficiencies in medicine is intellectualized as a practical limitation concerning evidence aggregation, which frames personalized approaches as harder to prove. This sets up a pattern where radical personalization (like teaching the immune system) is juxtaposed against pragmatic consensus-building.
The shift to personal experimentation with glycine exemplifies a broader pattern of seeking efficacy outside established medical channels, often mediated by emergent knowledge sources like AI and anecdotal evidence. The powerful subjective experience—the "fluffy relaxation"—is central, highlighting how psychological states can be profoundly influenced by perceived shifts in biochemistry, whether through true physiological change or potent placebo effects. This raises questions about the role of context and expectation in interpreting embodied experience versus objective data.
The concluding endorsement of glycine reflects a pattern where an individual, frustrated by systemic ambiguity (the lack of clear, personalized guidance), seeks a tangible intervention that yields immediate, undeniable relief. The system's response to this is characterized by curiosity and invitation, suggesting a dynamic where personal experiential knowledge can generate new avenues for discussion, even when framed within skepticism regarding the mechanism (placebo vs. reality). What remains unstated is the systemic cost of relying on such potent individual discoveries when navigating complex health realities.
Sentinel — Uncertain
This text reads as a highly reflective personal essay integrating medical philosophy with intense, subjective personal anecdotes about a self-experimentation process, strongly suggesting human authorship.