Advancements in medicine are booming, with potential cures for diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, and HIV on the horizon. We are entering a new era of medicine, with new breakthroughs happening all the time. There have been landmark moments in the development of modern medicine, such as the discovery of vaccines, anaesthesia, germ theory, and medical imaging. The discovery of penicillin in 1928 has extended human lifespan by 23 years.
According to Bertalan Mesko, a medical doctor and director of the Medical Futurist Institute in Budapest, the world is on the brink of a new ‘golden age’ of medicine, with breakthroughs in mRNA technology, AI, 3D printing, and genomics leading to new and more targeted treatments. Covid-19 has accelerated this pace of progress. AI will supercharge the pace of drug discoveries and can analyse and identify tumours in scans more effectively than humans can. Doctors will be able to reduce their day-to-day administration around documentation, prescribing, and screening for common conditions, freeing up more time to help patients.
Advancements in medicine have resulted in a rapid extension of human lifespan, but longer lives are not necessarily healthy lives. The new golden age of medicine will tackle the downside of these advancements, producing breakthroughs in treating some of the most recalcitrant conditions of old age. For example, there will be a gene-silencing treatment for Alzheimer’s and wearable diagnostics that will give early warnings of metabolic disease, strokes and heart attacks to reduce disablement and improve patient outcomes. Stem cell therapies for infertility and therapeutics targeting the microbiome will be revolutionary and will reduce the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections such as Clostridium diffcile.
The microbiome is a community of microorganisms that includes millions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi that live in and on our bodies. It is an undiscovered frontier in medicine, with studies showing that these symbiotic human helpers protect against a variety of diseases, produce vitamins, and have a profound role in the functioning of our immune systems. They also protect against anxiety and depression. The human microbiome will revolutionize medicine, and we are lucky to be living through this amazing time
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