Ultramodern medicine: the paradoxes of innovation

Ultramodern medicine: the paradoxes of innovation

A paradigm shift is taking place in all fields, including medicine: we are in an era of "ultramodern medicine". The emergence of artificial intelligence, big data, and nanobiotechnology offer fascinating prospects. Will the promise of a long and healthy life come true?

Numerous publications have highlighted the interplay between health and innovation, demonstrating that there are no technological reforms without health benefits and no health benefits without the invention of new concepts. Cutting-edge medicine means, first and foremost, the need for technologically improved medicine that is recognized as effective and ethical.

Medicine based on communication hygiene

Social networks and digital media have led today to an increase in misinformation, excessive vulgarization, and intoxication. The e-patient has a greater need to communicate, share knowledge, experiences, and information, and try to separate the true from the false. Of course, innovation has contributed to the development of the patient's role in the healthcare process. Some chronically ill patients thus become patient experts.....

The "medical paternalism" that made the patient a mere executor of the act of care is tending to become a participatory contract, especially when diseases that were once fatal become increasingly chronic. The same is true of the increase in so-called multimodal diseases - simultaneously affecting several organs or regions of the human body - which require more intense communication between patients and providers to "decomplexify" the diagnosis and, therefore, the prognosis.

Omics: another weapon in the arsenal of the physicians of the future

In medical practice, omics enables a comprehensive understanding of complex and dynamic biological systems. The best-known omics techniques are genomics (e.g. identification of genetic variants), epigenomics (e.g. DNA methylation), transcriptomics (analysis of gene expression), proteomics (analysis of proteins), and metabolomics (analysis of the metabolites produced).

These new techniques make it possible to study the relationships between different "omics" markers and disease, an environmental factor, exposure, a response to treatment, etc. Combined with informatics, omics technologies make it possible to understand the pathophysiological mechanisms of diseases and to identify new biomarkers associated with them and new potential therapeutic targets. Studies have shown that adverse drug reactions are the seventh leading cause of hospitalization in Canada and the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. More targeted drugs could reduce hospitalizations and thus healthcare costs. They also enable the development and application of new technologies for disease prevention (biosensors, diagnostic tools, new therapies, etc.).

Ultramodern medicine is a medicine that pays more attention to the problems of aging, with the long-term goal of being "immortal" and, in the short and medium-term, of slowing down cells. In other words, it is moving from a system that treats age-related diseases to a system that treats aging as a disease in itself.  A medicine that pays more attention to the smallest details of our brain, to the circadian conditions that determine the transition between wakefulness and sleep. A medicine that constantly develops neuroscientific aspects to repair, replace and improve both our diseased and healthy brains. Advanced medicine is a wave of innovation that aims to create artificial intelligence (AI) machines that connect to the human brain to create a hybrid that can utilize an infinite amount of data available in the cloud.

Modern medicine is the first step toward transhumanist thinking and the "augmented human".