By DR KENNETH D. KEMP
WE often ignore what our bodies are telling us. We blame the bags under our eyes on a busy week, dismiss changes in how often we pass urine, and convince ourselves that the discomfort in our chest is merely heartburn. There’s always something more urgent to do, somewhere else to be. So, we explain away these messages from within and carry on, hoping that whatever’s wrong will soon resolve itself.
But what if our bodies could do more than send signs we struggle to interpret or choose to ignore, telling ourselves they don’t matter? What if, in the middle of an ordinary afternoon, our phones delivered a message: “Your resting heart rate has been higher than usual for several days. Have you noticed any other changes?” Artificial intelligence is beginning to help people interpret information collected by the devices they wear. The technology raises a fascinating question: could we one day have a conversation with our own bodies?
Research announced this month by the University of Pennsylvania offers an early glimpse. In a small study involving 13 adults undergoing brain monitoring for epilepsy, patients used a smartphone application to ask questions about their brain activity, report symptoms, and receive information from an AI system connected to their monitoring data. The system could also initiate contact when it detected changes.
In the study, published in Nature Medicine, patients contributed information about what they were experiencing, which in turn helped the system interpret the signals it collected. Although this was an early hospital study, it opens a remarkable door and made me wonder what happens when that conversation extends beyond the brain?
Imagine a health companion that, with your permission, could bring together your medical history, laboratory results, medications, and information from appropriate sensors. It could learn your usual patterns and help identify changes that deserve attention. Then imagine it starting a conversation. “You mentioned feeling tired. Your sleep has been disrupted and your resting heart rate has risen over the past week. Have you noticed anything else?” You might mention unusual breathlessness when climbing stairs. That detail could help the system recognize the need for medical assessment, bringing together clues you might otherwise have dismissed.
Elements of this future already exist. Insulin pumps integrated with a continuous blood glucose monitor can signal patients when blood sugar is spiking and automatically adjust insulin delivery, helping keep glucose levels within a target range. Certain Apple and Samsung watches can record an electrocardiogram (ECG) and flag possible heart rhythm abnormalities. Portable devices such as KardiaMobile offer similar checks, while Oura’s AI adviser helps users interpret their health data collected by wearing a simple ring.
These tools cannot replace a medical assessment by an actual physician but they reveal how much has already moved from the consulting room into our everyday lives. Now imagine what may come next.
A bathroom could become a quiet checkpoint for health. A toilet with reliable testing technology might identify selected changes in urine and suggest a laboratory test. I imagine there will be future glasses that can detect eye strain and automatically send a prompt to the patient to adjust to appropriate lighting. A mirror might track a visible skin abnormality over time and prompt someone to have it examined. Their value primarily lies in recognizing something worth investigating.
Even our shoes might contribute. For the past few years, I’ve been working with a footwear sensor company to explore whether changes in pressure and gait could reveal problems earlier, including movement patterns associated with Parkinson’s disease. In my practice, the technology already helps identify abnormal pressure points in patients with diabetes, highlighting areas vulnerable to injury.
A local company, Simplified Technology, is training quadrupeds (robots that look like dogs) to monitor patients who suffer from dementia, sending warning signals when they wander off, or assisting with simple tasks, including alerting them to danger. The ambition is health monitoring that fits into life without demanding that life revolve around it.
Future technology could also help us describe what happens between appointments. Patients frequently struggle to remember when a symptom started, how often it occurred or whether it followed a change in medication. This system might assemble that history, ask the patient to check it and, with consent, share a concise account with the doctor. The physician could then assess the patient with a clearer history.
For The Bahamas, these possibilities have particular significance. Imagine someone on a Family Island whose symptoms and measurements could be reviewed promptly by a clinical team in Nassau. With the right infrastructure, technology might help clarify who needs to travel urgently and who can receive appropriate care locally. But a warning is only useful if help can follow. The technology would need to connect people to care they can actually reach and afford.
That future, however, will depend on more than impressive software.
A system can sound convincing and still be wrong. A change in a measurement may have several explanations, while serious symptoms may occur without a wearable detecting anything unusual. Chest discomfort cannot safely be dismissed because a watch offers reassuring numbers. Clinical judgement, examination, and appropriate testing would remain essential.
There are also questions of privacy and access. Who would control such an intimate record of our lives? Would meaningful protection be available only to those who could afford expensive devices and subscriptions? And could constant alerts leave otherwise healthy people afraid of every variation in their readings? Inventors should consider those questions from the beginning. A useful health companion would need to know when to interrupt, acknowledge uncertainty and direct someone to professional care.
Ideally, it should help people live more freely.
There is the reality, however, that by using increasingly sophisticated technology we have already given up what we used to think of as our right to privacy. Browse online for an item you might buy and suddenly you are bombarded with similar product offers.
Science fiction has long invited us to picture technologies before they became familiar. Medicine needs that imagination, accompanied by the discipline to prove that an invention actually helps. The next generation of innovators may grow up believing that a conversation with the body is an ordinary expectation, then spend their careers making it possible.
For now, we still wake up, look in the mirror and explain away the tiredness. We still postpone the appointment because there is work to finish and somewhere else to be. Perhaps one day, in the middle of that familiar rush, a message will persuade us to pause. And I suspect that the next great advance in medicine will help us understand those messages clearly enough to act, while there’s still time to make a meaningful difference.
This is The KDK Report.