A study of the statistics of search queries allows you to detect previously unknown side effects of drugs.

Using data from the search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo for 2010, a team of researchers from Microsoft Research, Stanford and Columbia University confirmed the possibility of detecting the side effects of drugs by analyzing information from the logs of general search engines. For the test, information was used that the combined use of two drugs, paroxetine and pravastatin, can lead to hyperglycemia . This became known only in 2011, that is, in 2010 there could be no information about this on the network.



Scientists analyzed the frequency of search terms related to symptoms of hyperglycemia among users who had previously searched for information on these two drugs on the network. It turned out that the frequency of searches for hyperglycemia symptoms is much higher for those who were looking for information on both drugs than for those who were looking for only one of them. The graphs show that the difference was noticeable throughout the year and is not some temporary or seasonal effect.







Usually such side effects are learned by analyzing the medical records of patients in hospitals. Analysis of search queries allows you to find similar dependencies much earlier, as people are not always and not immediately turn to a specialist as soon as they discover a new symptom - a visit to a doctor takes time, money and can cause unpleasant emotions, while searching the Internet is a matter of five minutes Thus, search engine logs often contain much more complete and up-to-date information than in medical databases; you only need to be able to find it.

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PDF with the results of the study.