Hacker News Reader

Comment by oceanplexian | Hacker News Reader

This is what the healthcare community claims, but they're wrong.

I took a preventative MRI run by an ML/AI company that the healthcare folks say is a bad idea. I didn't discover any hidden cancers but they did find 1-2 emerging health issues that were preventable with simple diet and lifestyle changes.

If everyone showed up to their doctor asking for preventative imaging, it would overwhelm doctors since there aren't enough resources to treat everyone who is sick. Your individual health will always be less important than the integrity of the system.

View on HN

No its literally just a statistics issue. Say you screen someone for a 1 in a million disease with a 0.001% false positive rate. If you find something and have to do a biopsy to figure out if its a real issue or not, you will have 99.9% of them be for nothing. Biopsies are actually risky procedures that can have dangerous complications that can and do harm people. Say your biopsy has a 99% accuracy. This means even after all that someone with a confirmed biopsy only has a 10% chance of having the disease, and may get dangerous and life changing treatment for nothing.

> they did find 1-2 emerging health issues that were preventable with simple diet and lifestyle changes

Sounds like the exact same results you'd have gotten without imaging.

"The for-profit company's bullshit generator promised it helped me with some minor stuff" is perhaps not as compelling evidence as you imagine it to be.

At least one of the issues was a high definition image of a degenerating disc, a child could diagnose it by comparing it to the image of a healthy spine, never mind an algorithm.

You would have no idea you had it without imaging, since in the early stages you feel nothing.

Now I can work to build up muscle around that area and avoid over exerting that part of my back, instead of dealing with pain and being prescribed opiates in 20 years. Another example of how the system has killed countless people and absolutely failed the public.

> You would have no idea you had it without imaging, since in the early stages you feel nothing.

From 30 years of age, disc degeneration is more likely than not. You don’t need a scan to tell you you’re in the early stages of it.

By age 50, around 80% of people have a degenerative disc on imaging... it's over 1/3rd by age 20.

Everyone is going to get a bad back at some point if they don't take care of themselves.

"Eat right and exercise " is very generic advice, but it's cheaper than an MRI and will prevent more disease.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com