PUBLIC INVESTIGATOR BRIEF · MINIMAL VIABLE NUTRITION EXPERIMENT · FAST

A planning-stage research concept seeking correction, qualified ownership, and an institutional home.

This decision brief separates the founder's hypothesis from the scientific, medical, regulatory, and institutional determinations that remain open.

Review the decision summary Download the one-page brief (PDF)Request a feasibility conversation

No principal investigator
No host institution
No research sponsor or regulatory responsible party
No IRB submission or approval
No recruitment or intervention

Public web brief · updated August 5, 2026 · founder-developed · independent scientific review pending. Hero imagery is conceptual editorial art, not a real participant or active study.

DECISION SUMMARY

What a prospective owner should know first.

Nothing on this page is an approved protocol, consent document, recruitment notice, clinical recommendation, or product-validation claim.

MVNI / FAST at a glance
Concept proposer	Sonny Desposito, founder of Art of Survival. No clinical or academic credential is asserted here.
Current owner	No principal investigator, host institution, research sponsor, regulatory responsible party, medical monitor, or independent scientific reviewer has accepted responsibility.
Current phase	Pre-investigator feasibility review, premise correction, investigator identification, and institutional-pathway exploration.
Candidate classification	Potential single-participant prospective feasibility study; the investigator, institution, and biostatistician must determine the defensible design and terminology.
Founder hypothesis	A defined essential-amino-acid formulation might reduce lean-tissue catabolism and preserve selected functions during prolonged severe energy restriction as reliance on stored fat rises.
Candidate primary aim	Determine whether a medically governed, prespecified protocol can generate interpretable feasibility, safety, adherence, and measurement data.
Exploratory question	What trajectories appear in whole-body nitrogen or protein-turnover measures, hydration-controlled body composition, selected functions, and safety when a defined EAA formulation is supplied?
Causal limit	Without a comparator or repeated conditions, a one-direction single-participant design cannot isolate an EAA treatment effect.
Immediate ask	A 20-minute feasibility critique, identification of fatal flaws, or referral to a better-suited scientific and institutional owner.

THE PROPOSED QUESTION

Does the prospective knowledge justify the participant burden and risk?

The founder's working hypothesis concerns a documented EAA formulation supplied during prolonged severe energy restriction. Candidate observations include substrate-use estimates, investigator-selected nitrogen-balance or protein-turnover measures, standardized hydration-controlled body composition, strength, cognition, task performance, symptoms, clinical biomarkers, safety, and recovery.

The first defensible objective is feasibility and interpretability. Comparative efficacy, optimization, and population claims would require later designs selected by qualified investigators.

Read the source-linked metabolic evidence guide →

DESIGN PATHS FOR QUALIFIED REVIEW

The founder is not preselecting the design.

Measurement-validation phase

Establish repeatability, learning effects, hydration controls, equipment precision, and participant burden before any severe intervention is considered.

Lower-risk feasibility phase

If justified, test operational workflows, tolerability, monitoring, and a narrower nutrition question under qualified clinical ownership.

Single-participant prospective phase

Only if preceding gates support it, evaluate a prespecified directional intervention with an adequate baseline, fixed endpoints, independent stopping authority, and an analysis frozen in advance.

Later controlled replication

Population inference, comparative efficacy, and general safety would require a larger design chosen by investigators—not extrapolation from the founder's case.

Design limitation that cannot be worded away

A one-direction, one-person case cannot establish population efficacy, prove safety for others, separate intervention effects from fasting adaptation with confidence, or automatically qualify as a classical randomized N-of-1 trial. Starting condition, expectancy, measurement error, time, training, hydration, glycogen, and regression to the mean remain major interpretive threats.

NON-NEGOTIABLE PREREQUISITES

No intervention before accountable owners and stopping authority exist.

Scientific ownership

A qualified principal investigator, methodological review, biostatistical input, an institutional home, and a version-controlled protocol with prespecified outcomes.

Independent clinical safety

Eligibility and exclusion rules, medication and supplement review, laboratory schedule, adverse-event definitions, emergency access, an independent medical monitor, and unconditional authority to pause or stop.

Refeeding and recovery

A clinically owned refeeding plan, post-intervention monitoring, recovery endpoints, and escalation pathways—not an improvised return to food after a target duration.

Data and publication integrity

Institution-approved data systems, audit trails, privacy controls, frozen analysis rules, conflict disclosure, and the right to report null, unfavorable, or harmful findings.

REGULATORY DECISION MATRIX

Questions for the institution—not conclusions from this website.

The matrix identifies decisions that remain open. It does not provide a regulatory determination.

Open regulatory and governance determinations
Question	Current position	Required owner
Human-subjects research?	The intended systematic intervention and publication aim may meet the definition; no institutional determination exists.	Institutional research or human-research-protection office.
IRB or ethics review?	Not submitted and not approved. Founder consent cannot replace independent review.	Institutional IRB or ethics authority.
FDA or IND implications?	Depend on product, formulation, intended use, claims, endpoints, and study design. No determination exists.	Sponsor-investigator, institutional regulatory office, and FDA when appropriate.
ClinicalTrials.gov?	Registration duties cannot be assigned until the design and responsible party are established.	Institutional sponsor or other lawful responsible party.
Privacy and research data?	No institutionally governed data collection is active.	Institution, investigator, privacy office, and approved data-system owner.

CONFLICTS AND COMMERCIAL SEPARATION

The Art of Survival umbrella includes a store. FAST cannot validate it by association.

Art of Survival may sell supplements, apparel, and merchandise through a separate commercial lane. No store product has been selected as the research intervention, validated by FAST, or endorsed by a qualified scientific owner.

If an institution adopts the work, it must independently assess intervention composition, manufacturer documentation, supply and quality controls, investigator and founder interests, sponsor restrictions, and whether the commercial relationship is acceptable.

THE REQUEST

A feasibility conversation—not a prewritten endorsement.

We are seeking a qualified metabolic, nutrition, exercise-physiology, clinical, biostatistical, bioethical, or institutional research professional willing to identify fatal flaws, define the minimum defensible version, or refer the proposal to a better-suited owner. Material redesign or a well-supported conclusion that the proposal is not viable would both be useful outcomes.

A first conversation should answer three questions: Is any version scientifically worth pursuing? What is the lowest-risk informative next phase? Which investigator and institution could legitimately own it?

DOCUMENT CONTROL

Public brief provenance.

Public version: 1.0
Last updated: August 3, 2026
Concept proposer: Sonny Desposito
Independent scientific reviewer: not yet assigned
Institutional owner: none
Review status: pending

Drafting and presentation were assisted by AI. Scientific claims should be evaluated against the linked primary sources and corrected by qualified human reviewers before institutional use.