The Problem With Cancer

4min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Cancer is a huge massively heterogeneous, highly diverse set of diseases and conditions. You should basically never use the word cancer. There should always be cancers in the plural. But cancers is rightly understood as highly diverse even individualized. Probably no one has ever had the exact type of cancer that you have when you have it. Your prostate cancer genetically might look more like someone else's breast cancer.

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.