The good physician treats the disease while the great physician treats the patient who has the disease. William Osler
Artificial Intelligence and Your Health
Do you have a good physician or a great physician? How well does your physician help you understand your health and medical conditions? More importantly, are you able to provide your physician with good information and/or to ask the kinds of questions that help you understand? There is little doubt that becoming more of a participant in your own health care can lead to better outcomes or, at the very least, help you feel more in control of your health outcomes.
I am a big fan of the new artificial intelligence technology currently available to us. It is clearly the very beginning of a new technological and information revolution. While I am unable to understand the technology behind large language models like AI, I am not reluctant to try to use them. And I would like to share a bit of what I have discovered are the real health benefits of using AI.
First, let’s clarify that AI is not at this point a replacement for your physician although more and more physicians are themselves using AI to help them diagnose and suggest treatments for some medical conditions. However, let me say that I have found that I typically spend more time in the doctor’s waiting room than I do with the doctor, and in his presence, his attention is directed as much at his computer as it is to me. He will ask me questions and answer mine, but our conversations are brief. AI is far more informative and forthcoming with ALL the information that is responsive to my questions. Once I’m out of the doctor’s office, I’m typically done until the next appointment. Not so with AI. With AI, I can take as much time as I need to figure out my questions and to add more questions or more information. AI is always available.
It is not the best use of AI to have it diagnose your problems. The reason is that doctors generally know what questions to ask you to then to arrive at a diagnosis. AI must depend on you to ask the questions before it can answer them. And, if you don’t know what questions to ask or data to provide, it can’t give complete answers. More recently, however, AI is prompting the user for more information. This is an enormously useful feature of AI because it helps the user to think more about their issues. As patients, we often don’t know enough about our blood test results, for example. AI questions get you more involved with knowing your body. Most of the time, AI will, at the end of your conversation, provide you with a summary of what you discussed and the questions you can ask your doctor at your next appointment.
In my recent interaction with AI, I initially wanted to know whether I could safely reduce my medications or dosages. The first thing AI did was exactly what the nurse does before you see the doctors. It asks your age, sex, height, weight, typical blood pressure, and heart rate. Being curious and wanting to know how and why AI says what it says, I asked what the purpose of those questions was. It responded that the questions were asked in order to provide dosing information. Often medications are dosed, at least partially, on the basis, of this kind of information. With that information, AI provided me with the standards for each of my medications. Then it asked me questions about my medical history. AI changed its initial comments about the medications based on certain medical events which occurred in my life. It then asked me about family medical history and again updated its response based on that additional information. It then asked me if I knew of any reason so many of my family suffered from the same medical conditions. No physician ever asked me that question. I was able to tell the AI about a congenital issue in my family. Within seconds, it updated my entire medical history, explaining how those congenital factors may have interacted with medical events in my life and that of my family.
AI asked me about the age at death of my relatives with similar medical conditions. Since they were all ten or more years younger than I am now, that led to a discussion of my diet and exercise habits. Again, it updated its answers regarding my initial questions about medications.
AI then reported the probabilities associated with benefits and risks of taking or not taking the medications. It was all very factual as it cited the research on each medication. At one point, when I asked about dropping one of the medications, AI said: “considering your age, medical history, family history and congenital predispositions, HELL NO.” My physician had simply said it wasn’t “advisable” and never explained why. AI provided an entire risk/benefit analysis.
In discussing diet, AI pointed out the salt content of the very specific brand of food I had eaten that day, explaining in detail the effect of salt on my blood pressure and why. I had been told to reduce salt but never told why. Now that I fully understand what salt does to my blood vessels, I will be severely reducing my salt consumption. With information, I become a much more compliant patient.
Finally, a discussion of why I felt fatigue after exercising led to the nature of my exercise and what I was eating prior to exercise. I thought I was simply aging and should reduce my level of exercise. Looking for excuses to not exercise is my default setting. AI, however, did not let me off the hook with the aging excuse and had a different explanation. I was encouraged to continue my exercise regimen because of its health benefits but to increase the amount of carbohydrates at breakfast. It suggested foods to supplement my existing diet and when to eat again, pointing out the ways to keep the sugars in my body at a steady and consistent level through the day rather than swinging up and down.
AI also told me, with my specific age, medical conditions and medications, what range of heart rates, blood pressure, etc. were optimal for me to achieve during workouts and warned of levels not to exceed by overdoing it. I found that to be very useful information. I spent the next 2-3 days monitoring heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen level during exercise to see where I was fitting into the prescribed ranges and when I was overdoing it. I matched that information against how I felt while exercising. Sometimes what felt like a lot wasn’t and what felt like a little was a lot.
With these AI programs, one can copy and paste all the questions and answers into a single document and print it out. In the end, I had a 25 page document detailing answers to questions I have had for 20 years or more without getting complete answers. AI could, based on research as recent as yesterday, provide me with risk assessments regarding my medications, explain dietary restrictions complete with explanations of the physical effects on my body, tell me how much of what foods to eat to support my exercise regime, give me an excellent assessment of my family medical history, provide me with questions I could discuss with my physician and so much more all in the space of 20 minutes. The AI responds in a matter of seconds, it was my input that took 19 of the 20 minutes,
The two AI programs I have used are Chat GPT openai.com/chatgpt/desktop and Grok 3 grok.com
By integrating AI into your routine thoughtfully, you can gain insights, monitor your health proactively, and make informed decisions---all while keeping your doctor and yourself better informed. Remember to always consult a healthcare provider about serious concerns.
