The Future of Health and Wellness

It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.

-Niels Bohr

 

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.

 –Albert Einstein

 

Homo sapiens appeared on planet Earth at least 300,000 years ago and has evolved as a species that values connection. In fact, connection and community are essential human needs, right up there with feeding (to stay alive), flight, fight (to avoid being eaten) and fornication (to keep the species going).

 

Over the last century, humans have plundered the planet with unprecedented population growth, abused over-strained our food production and supply systems, and have become increasingly sedentary and disconnected from the way of life that we developed and evolved with over 300 millennia ago.

 

The oldest written texts of human history, the Vedas describe 4 stages of life which cover a lifespan of 100 years. Through the Middle Ages and even until the recent industrial and revolution, our life expectancy at birth was in the 40’s.  We were able to improve our life expectancy at birth with the advent of antibiotics and improvements in sanitation. However, we have progressed at a painfully slow pace when it comes to improving longevity past improvements in infant mortality and communicable diseases.

 

At the same time, we discovered insulin, blood transfusion, penicillin, radiation therapy, immune suppressants, birth control pills, vaccines, organ transplantation, MRI scans, AIDS treatment, IVF and artificial heart valves, stents, joint replacement and have cured leukemia in children. With the advent of DNA repair technologies, protein synthesis, and new understanding of the gut microbiome, we are on the cusp of making disease, disability and death optional!

 

Our future is blindingly bright because civilization is ripe for a renaissance of the conditions and values which are essential to our survival as a species. We are getting ready to restore the average life expectancy of 100 years, with many of today’s children expecting life spans far greater than the average. Death will become elective, and a voluntary act involving a celebratory ceremony to mark the completion of a meaningful and joyous life.

 

Considering that humans are an ingenious, resilient and hardy species, we will undoubtedly restore our food production system back to where it was prior to the industrial age. Soil quality will be restored as we return to eating a nutrient dense calorie sparse diet interspersed with periods of fasting. “Organic farming” will be the norm, as it has been for most of our existence. This way we will restore our connection with nature and the soil of our dear planet, Mother earth. Feeding will be a cherished ritual rather than the mechanical, mindless, and mundane act it has become. We will restore our relationship with food to nurture and nourish us, conveying signals of health from nature. In doing so, we will activate the inborn systems of rebalancing and rejuvenation that each of comes equipped with, thanks to millennia of evolution.

 

Secondly, in reconnecting with Gaia, we will naturally become more active as we spend more time outdoors working with our hands and feet to pay homage to the soil which sustains us. The rampant industrialization and mechanization of our lives has wreaked havoc on our relationship with our Mother planet.

 

Thirdly, we will resync with our circadian rhythms in which every cell of our body and every microbe living within us has evolved in an ecofriendly manner. In parallel, we will re-establish our cherished relationships with other members of our species and with other species, with which have co-evolved.

 

Current trends shaping the future of health include:

• Wearable technology providing actionable data
• Precision medicine based on biochemical individuality
• Genomics and modifying genetic predispositions
• Study of gut microbiome and the ability to define health and prescribe optimal personalized diet and lifestyle recommendations

 

We, as consumers of health will play a much more active role in the transformation of healthcare. This not only requires healthcare providers to re-define their services beyond the traditional boundaries but also requires consumers to be more actively engaged as a community to truly bend the healthcare cost curves and improve overall health and well-being.

Forced boundaries of looking at health in terms of specialties based on organs and systems will fade. Medical specialists calling themselves as “ologists” will disappear as we realize that health and disease does not lend itself to such artificial classification and that the body works as a unit in combination with the planet and the larger universe-converging on “omics”-genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, microbiomics. Machines and algorithms will enable doctors to reclaim their place as true healers by enabling them to spend time and energy empathically connecting with the people that need their help.

Individuals will assume the driver’s seat regarding their own health. Communities will play a significant role in driving deeper engagement and adoption of new tools and technologies to improve overall health and wellness.

 

We will live healthier and more active lives by leveraging with data-driven insights, tools, and social support to make health happen.  That means that we will create and deliver solutions that:

• facilitate positive (even healthful?) lifestyle change by design,
• are designed to place people and how they live their lives at the core of their experience and
• are effective in helping people improve their health

 

As technology makes everything exponentially faster, smarter, smaller, cheaper, better, we will have data to make better choices every day. While data on its own has no value, it contributes to an actionable insight. Actionable insights are of limited value unless supported by solutions to act upon successfully.

 

Health is a state where everyone is experiencing a full human life across all the faculties. That is driven by both the physical and mental activities we do daily.  A family leading a healthier life has a tremendous economic value but like any long-term asset, it pays off significantly in the long term. Hence, any business model must factor in this investment. Today’s generation is perhaps the most health-conscious generation in the last 100+ years for two reasons.  100 years ago, our lifestyle was not a key determinant of our health consdiering more serious threats such as infectious diseases or war. In addition, our previous generations did not have the information to assess the impact of our lifestyle nor the tools to address them.

 

The top priorities in the future of health and wellness are to:

• INSPIRE: Encourage people to lead healthier lives with their family and friends-putting them back in charge as active participants rather than passive recipients
• INFORM: Help people become more aware of their body, learn about ways they can improve their health, and tackle health concerns
• INTEGRATE: Empower them to share their stories, successes, and challenges with their family, friends, and the world at large and help contribute to the worldwide movement to lead healthy lives 

 

Future Shock affirms Neils Bohr’s warnings about predicting the future. “No serious futurist,” Toffler writes, “deals in ‘predictions.’ . . . No one even faintly familiar with the complexities of forecasting lays claim to absolute knowledge of tomorrow. . .. Every statement about the future ought, by rights, be accompanied by a string of qualifiers—ifs, ands, buts, and on the other hands.” Indeed. But Toffler then turns right around and says, “The inability to speak with precision and certainty about the future, however, is no excuse for silence.” So, we will not be silent. . .. Here, then, are our “predictions” about the state of healthcare in the next 50 years.

 

Part A: Predictions about Medicine and Health in the next 50 years.

• There will be vaccines to prevent Alzheimer’s, Malaria, TB, HIV, Hepatitis C, Ebola, Enterovirus D68, and many cancers.
• Regenerative stem cells will replace organ transplantation.
• Bariatric surgery will become a historical footnote.
• Imaging technology and biomarkers will enable early identification and aid in eradication of tumors.
• Immunotherapy will be the key to cancer treatments and cut cancer mortality by over 50%.
• Democratization of knowledge will occur. Supercomputers will allow citizens to access health information.  Non-invasive sensors in our clothes will monitor a ton of information.
• Personalized medicine will be common practice.
• Nanotechnology and Nano biomedicine will flourish and permit more precise diagnosis and targeted therapies.
• There will be greater scientific understanding of the role of gut microbiota leading to novel therapies.
• Stem Cells and Spinal Implants will allow tens of thousands of paralyzed individuals to walk.
• Exploration of the workings of the brain and consciousness will be undertaken and provide masterful
• Social and political changes will have a major impact in addressing health on many frontiers
• Healthcare will be available and affordable for all earthlings especially with advances in tele-medicine
• Primary Care Medicine will be celebrated as the “Heroes’ Profession.”
• Patients will take a pill that will “mimic exercise” to combat the metabolic syndrome.
• Life expectancy in the United States will exceed 110

 

Part B: Predictions regarding the rest of Life:

1. Compassion will be the universal religion.
   2. Gratitude will be the universal language.
   3. Children will be hailed as the most insightful philosophers.
   4. Universities will exist primarily in the cloud and education will be accessible and affordable by all.
   5. There will be vaccines and / or treatment for all chronic diseases.
   6. Stem cells and regenerative medicine will flourish.
   7. Cheap desalination will make a water abundant for all.
   8 Understanding and harnessing the microbiome will be a beacon of advancing science.
   9. Humans will conquer the mystery of consciousness and unfold our full potential.
2. Humans will travel to distant planets in the time it now takes us to travel now by car from Boston to San Francisco and back. 
   11. Majority of humans will be vegetarians or pescatarians.
   12. All Children will practice meditation in school.
   13. Empathy classes will be mandatory every week in school from Kindergarten to High School.
   14. Global cooling will occur and save our planet.
   15. There will be peace on Earth.