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Sai's avatar

This is both incredibly interesting and really well written Stephen!!

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Stephen Skolnick's avatar

ayy thanks!

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Arabella's avatar

Fascinating! Thank you

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akinsch's avatar

So in summary, a couple caps of capsaicin-bearing extract and half a CBD gummy at the start of a workout? Okay, cool, well and good - except red chili extract capsules burn a hole straight through me and are intolerably unpleasant at any dosage, even if anything is getting into circulation to have the intended effect. And iirc (been a bit) the paper fed THIRTY GRAMS of chili extract, half of which was capsaicin-bearing. So what's the move?

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Tank Green's avatar

Thanks for making me laugh over breakfast (“absolute unit). Really fascinating and informative article, thank you.

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Dec 25, 2022
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Stephen Skolnick's avatar

Generally, consider how hard it is to separate out environmental vs. genetic effects, even in a twins-raised-apart study.

To control for things like the mother's blood chemistry in utero (which the microbiome has a huge impact on) you have to compare monozygotic (identical) to dizygotic (fraternal) twins.

In most of the studies I've seen, by the time you stratify down to look at something like concordance of a psychological trait in identical twins raised apart vs. fraternal twins raised apart, you've got like 30 pairs total and you're way underpowered for analyzing something so complex.

If you're thinking of a particular study, please link it!

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