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Ask HN: Why are we still not able to debug our bodies?
I mean like in real time, figuring out exactly what's happening with one's body, in order to diagnose problems, track nutrition, etc.
Why can't toilet do urine tests every day?
Why can't we ingest some capsule that tracks biomarkers in the blood, in real time?
This is so frustrating. We have all these awesome technologies, yet we have trouble diagnosing problems for what is maybe the most important thing for us - our body.
As a software engineer in my thirties with little knowledge in bio, I'm willing to devote my career into solving this problem. What should I do?
- grawprog 8y agoProbably because when it comes down to it a lot of diagnoses come down to guesswork based on a variety of things. Taking your urine test as an example, what exactly are you testing for? Going over the references for a urinalysis let's just take colour and one indicator https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_urine_tests https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_urine_tests >Nearly colorless: Excessive fluid intake for conditions; untreated diabetes mellitus, diabetes insipidus, and certain types of nephritis. Ok so going by just having near colourless urine you could have just drank too much water, you could have diabetes, mellitus or nephritis. And that's just colour and only one colour. Going over all the different things checked for in just a urinalysis, which is only one kind of urine test, you may start to get the picture. There are so many different kinds of tests for so many different things and there are so many things the results of tests could indicate it really takes a trained doctor who understands the different combinations of symptoms and indicators to make an accurate diagnosis. Biological organisms are extremely complex. There are so many different parts working together and so much variation on what's considered 'normal'. I just don't think that's something that can be trusted to AI or automated systems quite yet. We just don't have the understanding as to what everything really does to be able to.
- shry4ns 8y agoIs very hard to implement the ideas. It’s certainly doable, but mostly cost issues create an economic barrier. In some cases, it might not be scientifically feasible. Don’t let that deter you though!