"Today, a doctor testing the blood of a sick patient is looking at about ten to twenty chemicals," said biochemist David Wishart of the University of Alberta. "We have identified 4229 chemicals found in the blood that a doctor can test today to diagnose the disease and treat health problems."
After three years of exhaustive and comprehensive research, carried out at the University of Alberta, the list of known compounds in human blood has expanded from a small number to more than four thousand.
"Today, a doctor testing the blood of a sick patient is looking at about ten to twenty chemicals," said biochemist David Wishart of the University of Alberta. "We have identified 4229 chemicals found in the blood that a doctor can test today to diagnose the disease and treat health problems."
Chemicals found in the blood, which are called metabolites, are routinely tested by doctors in order to diagnose medical conditions such as diabetes and kidney failure. The researcher explains that the new study provides the possibility of diagnosing hundreds of other diseases characterized by an imbalance in blood chemistry.
The researcher was responsible for more than twenty researchers at six different institutions who used contemporary technology to validate previous research, and also conducted their own laboratory experiments to detect new chemicals in the blood.
"This is the most comprehensive chemical characterization of blood conducted so far," said the researcher. "We now know what the normal levels of all the chemicals we were able to detect in the blood are. Doctors are able to use our measurements as a reference point to monitor their patient's current and even future health."
The researcher emphasizes that the chemicals in the blood are used as the initial suspicion for locating the first signs indicating an impending medical problem. "Blood chemistry is the first thing that changes when a person develops a dangerous condition such as high cholesterol."
The database that the researchers built is accessible to the general public and thus anyone can connect to it and find the extensive list of blood chemicals. The researcher explains that doctors are now able to connect to the accumulated knowledge of hundreds of research projects in the field of blood conducted in the past by researchers from all over the world. "With the help of this innovative database, doctors are now able to link a defined abnormality of hundreds of different chemicals in the blood with a particular medical problem of the patient," said the researcher.
The researcher believes that the adoption of his research will happen slowly, when hospitals begin to integrate new search protocols and equipment to test hundreds of units out of more than four thousand chemical markers found in the blood and which were identified by the team of researchers.
"Scientists have been studying the blood for over a hundred years," said the researcher. "By combining past research with our new findings we have been able to advance the science of blood chemistry several steps forward." The research findings were published in the scientific journal PLoS One.
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Ghost I would give my body to an open source robot with my eyes closed.
Most likely a robot will not make mistakes at all (if it works properly) because it is always objective.
A robot does not have feelings of fatigue, anger and all the things that can disturb a doctor...
Beyond that, the fear of computers or robots breaking down, it's only because of the capitalist system that requires things to break down in order for circular consumption to remain.
point (5)
Who would you give your body to for medical treatment - say some kind of surgery - a robot or a doctor?
Ami Bachar, I think that this whole set of considerations can be put into a computer and it will even give a better result than a regular doctor. And don't forget that sometimes doctors make mistakes, and their opinions can differ. So yes, I think a standard artificial intelligence can decide in a way that is reasonable for a doctor.
Don't forget that nowadays computers that play chess are much, much better than the best chess players. And all this by cold logic.
And with all due respect to medicine, in my opinion, in medicine there are fewer considerations that the doctor takes into account than a NIS game. The flexibility in medicine is much greater.
I'm not sure that's true, Mr. Universe. In the end, the computerized report that will be received will have data and trends that the doctor will look at when they are already exhausted and arranged and there he will exercise judgment regarding continued activity. Imagine a person with no legs getting a blood biochemistry result that is usually appropriate for someone with knee problems. The computer will immediately send him to physiotherapy for his knees, while the doctor will immediately see that in this specific case cupping is actually better. Until the computer has reached a level of artificial intelligence good enough like the human - there will always be room for the doctor's discretion. In the distant future when the computer will know how to operate something other than cold logic - maybe then you can give it the right to advise the doctor and explain to him in a way that he understands why the treatment should be this way or that way.
Greetings friends,
Ami Bachar
Indeed, a future system that will know how to test a person's blood sample and analyze over 4000 variables, will have to be completely robotic, and rely on a huge database, let's say the Internet, and available to everyone. The discretion of the doctor skimming over the data will not be waived at all.
In the end, such a system will be able to give you a note that says "Life, you overdid it with the beans"
magnificent!
I strongly believe in this technology. In the coming years, tools must be developed that will reduce the cost of the comprehensive examination of as many metabolites as possible in the blood of the subject and thus create databases of enormous dimensions from which a lot can be learned. Both within symptomatic correlations and from correlations against genetic databases that are gaining momentum with the development of technology for genetic scans for every person. This is definitely the right way to go now. The doctors and medical researchers of the future are statisticians. Go study statistics and thus save many lives (from the western world, of course, but still - this is also a start).
Science has entered an era of widespread use of multivariable databases in a way that does not allow a person to analyze them without automatic equipment such as a computer. The most important developments will be smart algorithms that will be able to separate and extract from a very large data base of the subject, the relevant trends that the doctor will have to continue to check for a more specific disease. This is definitely a significant breakthrough that will gain a new effect in the coming years with the streamlining and understanding of the metabolic system in the blood and with the streamlining and cheapening of the equipment.
Greetings friends,
Ami Bachar
Well done,
Fascinating and useful article…