The Importance of Genome Analysis in Medicine

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The genome itself is going to reveal a whole series of diseases for which we're going to have to fix, make drugs and so forth. For example, there are roughly 7000 rare diseases. We do this on an individual basis because the rare diseases occur once in 200,000 people. So we'll want to have genome wide analyses of the whole population that hopefully at birth can say you have four gene defects. And here are some that we have drugs for and the rest we don't.

We are on the cusp of a major transformation in healthcare. Using information gleaned from our blood and genes and tapping into the data revolution made possible by AI, doctors can catch the onset of disease years before symptoms arise, revolutionizing prevention. At top hospitals and a few innovative health-tech startups, scientists are working closely with patients to dramatically extend their “healthspan”―the number of healthy years before disease sets in. In The Age of Scientific Wellness, two visionary leaders of this revolution in health take us on a thrilling journey to this new frontier of medicine.

Hood, Price, and Shermer discuss: why we age and die • sickcare vs. healthcare • the 10 most popular drugs in the U.S. work for only about 10% of treated people • chronological age ≠ biological age • life expectancy, life span, longevity, and healthspan • why eliminating all cancers would only increase average life span by 3 years • genome vs. phenome • gut biome • optimizing brain function • brain plasticity • sleep, nutrition, exercise • Alzheimer’s • AI and quantum computing for better health.