Eating enough protein on a suppressed appetite is an arithmetic problem before it is a nutritional one
The practical difficulty is not knowing the target. It is meeting it on an appetite that has been pharmacologically reduced by half.
Laboratory Notebook in 2024
Page 3 of 5 of this archive, newest first.
Rapid weight loss moves eight analytes for reasons that have nothing to do with the drug
Three different explanations for the same abnormal number, and how to tell them apart.
EGFR, cystatin C, and the check on the check
What the renal and hepatic outcome programmes actually measured, and over what duration.
Glass, elastomer, aluminium: a three-material argument about one closure
Particulate matter is the oldest quality attribute in injectable manufacture and the one a private buyer is best placed to assess without instrumentation.
The intramuscular injection nobody intended
The insulin injection-technique literature is large, well conducted and directly transferable on questions of depth and tissue. We say where it stops transferring.
The out-of-range flag is a statistical convention with a printer attached
Almost every misreading of a laboratory panel is a misunderstanding of what a reference interval is and how much a result has to move before the movement means anything.
Pore size, particle size, and why peptides need the wide pores
A shallow gradient resolves impurities that a steep one runs into the parent peak. Both methods are legitimate; only one of them can see the small stuff.
Reading a barrel in the wrong increments
We have catalogued what readers report, ranked by the size of the dosing error each produces.
The one-quarter rule, and the paper that took it apart
Almost every practical recommendation in circulation was established in a population that does not resemble the people now following it.
Micronutrient monitoring: which panel, how often, and on whose evidence
What the trials measured, which in the case of micronutrients is very little.
What “LC-MS: conforms” tells a reader, which is almost nothing
What the Journal asks for when it writes to a supplier about an identity claim, and how often it gets it.
A lyophilised peptide is not stable. It is slow.
We set out what the cycle does, in order, so that a reader can see which of its steps a rushed operation shortens first.
The figure of merit this trade chose, and the four it did not
Chromatographic purity is cheap, fast and comparable-looking. Those three properties, and not its usefulness, explain why it became the industry’s single figure of merit.
What VendorInvestigate is able to certify about a sealed vial, and what it is not
The Journal has read several hundred certificates from twenty companies. We set out what the documents actually cover, and what a reader is filling in from imagination.
What we are not saying about anybody in this trade
None of what this piece asks for is commercially sensitive, and all of it is already known to whoever released the batch.
Why a dead-clean sterile filter can pass pyrogen straight through
The masking phenomenon known as low endotoxin recovery means a formulation can return a clean result while containing endotoxin the assay cannot see.
How to audit an identity claim in five minutes
The regulated world states the method, the instrument, the convention and the tolerance. This market states a verdict.
Reading HbA1c in the presence of anaemia
A robust, cheap, standardised assay with a specific and well-catalogued set of failure modes, several of which are common in this population.
Two analysts, one chromatogram, two answers
We work through a single chromatogram twice, under two integration conventions, and show where the difference comes from.
Bone density during rapid weight loss: what is known, which is less than you would hope
Weight loss reduces bone mineral density at load-bearing sites. Whether that translates into fractures in this population is unmeasured.