Show HN: Building Alternative to Examine.com

Hey everyone!

I am sure everyone is already familiar with Examine. It is perhaps the biggest resource on supplement research. The way they've been operating is that they focus on a few health areas and then scout for research papers that mention related health outcomes, and then describe the link to different supplements. This is a hugely laborious undertaking, but now with AI, many parts of this process can be automated, and that's what I am building.

Here is an example of all research that is linked to Increased Short-Chain Fatty Acid Levels:

https://pillser.com/health-outcomes/increased-short-chain-fa...

I've now indexed thousands of research papers and extracted insights from them that link those studies to different supplements available on the market. The long-term goal is to create the first of the kind supplement store where every supplement on the marketplace is linked to research. Unlike Examine, I intend to make all research summaries public and instead focus on affiliate revenue from the related supplement sales.

The biggest challenge is data accuracy. Due to these being complicated topics, I am avoiding extracting any insights beyond demonstrating a link between the study, health outcome and substance. Users are then linked to the actual research papers where they can building confidence in their decision. However, over time, as AI models advance, I am planning to expand this to a complete insight engine.

I am fascinated by the problem domain, and more generally data normalization problems and applications of LLMs to data normalization problems. I am now doing it as a hobby that I foresee to be a money losing activity for a long time into the future, but I also think there is a fair chance that Pillser could emerge as a preferred website for people who want to buy supplements due to the unique combination of science and inventory.

I am probably a few months away from having the complete database, but wanted to share for early feedback. The website is called https://pillser.com/, and you can already search for different health goals and associated research directly from the landing page.