Tag Archive for: healthcare

New Research Yields One More Factor

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The last recommendation for you in living every day you’re alive involves keeping the body working its best through regular maintenance. That means seeing your healthcare professionals on schedule. Here are some examples of what that can mean.

Researchers recently published a paper on the impact of a narrow band of ultraviolet light on the microbiome. If people were deficient in vitamin D, their microbiome was not as healthy as those who had normal vitamin D levels. The UV light did not improve the microbiome of those who had normal vitamin D levels, only those who did not. That’s why you need to get your bloodwork done regularly, including getting your vitamin D levels checked. Whether by sun or supplement, vitamin D is critical to your microbiome and many other aspects of your health.

A couple of years ago my glasses were broken and I needed a new prescription, so I finally had my eyes examined. It had been at least five years since my last exam. Turns out I have glaucoma; by using a couple of drops a day, I haven’t lost any vision. But if I hadn’t had my eyes checked, who knows what could have happened?

One more. It seemed like I kept getting shorter and shorter every time I had a checkup, so I had a bone density test done. Turns out I have osteopenia. Long-time runners like me aren’t supposed to get that, but there it is. I changed my supplements and I’ll get checked again this year.

I’ve often talked about the importance of protecting your dental health. Yes, teeth can be replaced, but it’s really expensive as Paula and I know from experience. While a dental checkup may seem like lot of money, it’s worth it to protect not only your teeth, but many other aspects of your health such as heart and digestive health.

Today’s lesson is get your body checked on a regular basis. We don’t ignore our hearts (for the most part) but the ability to see, to hear, to have strong bones, even to chew food is dependent on taking care of those specialty organs on a regular basis.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Front. Microbiol., 24 October 2019 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2019.02410.

AI and Healthcare

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What if, at some point in the future, your next physical is done via a holographic physician? The hologram will be chosen specifically for you, based on age, gender, and other characteristics collected from your posts on social media, websites you’ve visited, music you’ve listened to, shows you’ve watched on television or whatever replaces that in the future. Even the voice will be one that’s chosen just for you. Within seconds, maybe a few minutes, you completely forget that you’re not talking to a real human physician; you’re talking to something created with artificial intelligence. He or she is now your “physician.”

Another article I read had nothing to do with the medical profession. It had everything to do with the development of artificial intelligence (AI) by Google. It could take decades to get to any semblance of AI at this point although there’s an acceleration in technology that seems to happen. The question is whether it will be a good thing or not.

Certainly, there will be a vast amount of data collected from you: blood and urine for sure. DNA as well as the microbiome and maybe things we haven’t considered before such as odors. Computers will be able to analyze billions of bits of data in milliseconds. They can scan obscure medical journals and everything ever written about any condition. But then comes the real trick: the ability of the machine to put that all into a diagnosis and if necessary, a treatment plan.

Could AI do all that? Sure, based on just numbers and data and probabilities. The problem would be this: “Wait a minute. What I’m seeing while examining this person doesn’t match these numbers.” Or “there’s more going on here than what I see in the numbers.”

That’s what a human physician, with years of training, will be able to do. I can’t see a computer being able to do that. Instinct or even a gut feeling just doesn’t work in the computer world. No matter how many calculations that they can perform, and even given that AI can learn, they just will not have the neural network to be able to do that. In addition to that, how do you program empathy? How can you have confidence in something that’s not real?

One more thing: How do you program, or in this case, teach a machine to ask why something doesn’t make sense? Riley can ask me that question a hundred times in a day, but a machine? How can they learn to do that?

For as something as complicated as this human body is, with trillions and more of interactions, we can use the best data possible. Let’s leave that to the machines because that’s what they can do. And other than cases where people are too remote to see a live doctor, let’s leave healthcare diagnosis and treatments to humans.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

References: Fast Company. October 2019.