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Comment by solotronics | Hacker News Reader

I can imagine that we could use bio compatible chips to accurately measure blood levels of different vitamins and proteins. With this personal bio data you could identify if you have an imbalance of anything and address it, improving congnition and other conditions. Maybe this would be something a company like Apple or Fitbit develops as it seems like a natural extension of the health tracking they already do.

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The first thing we'd need to do is evaluate the optimal value of various vitamins, proteins, minerals, and other supplements for all humans- we're definitely not there yet. Our current blood tests allow a relatively large range of 'normal' for pretty much anything the blood uptakes.

So you use the new data gathering system to identify what variations matter.

>imbalance of anything and address it

I doubt everyone needs the exact same balance of chemicals/nutrients. That puts us back into the "level of pain" area of subjectivity. "Does this new vitamin balance make you feel better?"

We'd not want them to feel too good, mind you. That would be drugs!

If you go to the doctor, they can do your bloodwork on an old-fashioned big machine. It will probably tell you that everything's fine, unless you're sick or living on Cheetos. If a bio-compatible chip could do the same thing, you'd probably just end up with the same admonitions to not live off of a diet of pure french fries. If new biomarkers were discovered, they would become available on the big machine before they became available on the chips. So, the present is big machines, the future is big machines, maybe the far future is implanted monitoring devices.

i am not sure measuring blood levels constantly and interpreting them without real knowledge is a good thing for your mind. I think it's good we don't know about this all the time, if you do regular check up and get an OK back, that fine. Doing it constantly would just create anxieties for a lot of people.

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