WHAT'S AHEAD IN HEALTH ???

HERE IS WHAT ONE PERSON THINKS.
What's ahead in health? Longer lives, focus on
obesity.
BY CHRIS ZDEB, CANWEST NEWS SERVICE JANUARY 5, 2010
You might call Dr. Axel Meisen a fortune teller.
As the chairman of foresight with the Alberta Research Council, he has the task of
predicting issues of importance to the province 20 to 30 years down the road. And when it comes to medicine, Meisen sees changes ahead. Here he lists the 10 health trends we're most likely to see by the end of 2019.
"This all sounds really magical and (like) far-out medicine," Meisen says, "but I think it's coming and is within reach."

More birthdays
Most people now live into their 80s, but within 10 years, average life expectancy will begin
to approach 95 to 100 years. Reputable physicians say there's nothing much stopping us
from living to be 130 or 140, Meisen says, adding increased longevity will be mainly due to
better lifestyle choices.
More genetically caused diseases
Living longer means we're going to see more genetically influenced diseases typically
associated with longevity, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, Meisen says. Thanks to
the mapping of the human genome (the complete set of human genetic information), we're
getting closer all the time to understanding the causes of those diseases.
The overweight and obese will become the new smokers
With smokers dwindling in number, health advocates will turn their attention to whittling the
number of overweight and obese people, who further tax a health-care system groaning
under the weight of skyrocketing costs. More evidence will emerge that an unhealthy
weight is as bad for your health as smoking.
We'll start eating better
More people, including aging baby boomers, are aware of the link between good nutrition
and good health. Realizing much of the control rests in their hands, they're trying to eat
better and be more active, Meisen says, especially since they're going to live longer and
What's ahead in health? Longer lives, focus on obesity.
they don't want to spend the last years of their lives bedridden and riddled with disease.
Hardware will replace healing hands
Today's tele-health or tele-medicine, (delivering health-related services and information via
telephone, e-mail or video) is just the beginning. Gradually, doctors, nurses and other
health-care providers will be replaced by hardware and software, Meisen says.
Instead of a doctor poking and prodding at a patient, a machine will make an initial
diagnosis by measuring blood pressure, heart rate and weight, and maybe taking an
internal image of the body. By the end of the decade, most patients will be diagnosed by
physicians who aren't in the same room. This won't reduce the number of physicians
needed, but will free more of them to study data collected by advanced technology to
make a better diagnosis and decision about treatment, Meisen says.
Improved personal hygiene
We're already seeing a stronger link between handwashing and health, Meisen says.
Many infectious diseases are caused by poor hygiene in food preparation or in the home,
and more people will become aware of that, and improve their cleaning routines
accordingly.
On a public health level, this issue is already being addressed by removing the main doors
on public washrooms and having water, soap and hand towels or dryers triggered by
motion sensors.
Attention will now turn to making buses and LRT less hands-on, Meisen says.
Enhanced surgical procedures
Continued improvements to surgical procedures mean smaller incisions that require
shorter hospital stays and less time to heal. With robots, doctors can do things on a "micro
scale" that even the best physicians with the best hands and eyesight would have trouble
doing, Meisen says.
Today, open-heart surgery is still a very complicated, protracted procedure, but he expects
it to be shortened and simplified over the next 10 years because of new technology.
Cure for cancer possible
A cure for cancer depends on a breakthrough, which is extremely difficult to predict, but
the odds improve the more people work on it, Meisen says, and there are a lot of people
What's ahead in health? Longer lives, focus on obesity.
working on it.
More body parts replaced
Meisen expects significant advances in the development of replacement parts for the
body. We can already do simple replacements, for skin to treat burn victims, for example.
But we'll probably be able to replace tissue, muscle and some simple organs by the end of
the decade, reducing dependence on finding perfectly matched donor organs for
transplant, Meisen says.
The promise lies in research on stem cells and use of substrate (developing artificial body
parts or implants) into which you can grow things like muscle and skin, he explains. By
2019, we should be able to grow bone, eliminating the need to use metal pieces for repair.
We might also be able to develop an artificial kidney that is not a machine.
Into the mind
Sophisticated imaging techniques such as the functional MRI allow researchers to map
the way the mind works. Being able to study the living brain in action provides researchers
with information about depression, brain cancer, autism and memory disorders, bringing
them a step closer to figuring out how to possibly rewire it, though this is not likely to be
achieved in the next 10 years.
Edmonton Journal
czdeb@thejournal.canwest.com
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