- 4 days ago
On this edition of Health360, India Today's Sneha Mordani explores the rapidly evolving landscape of modern medicine and nutrition. The programme investigates how OpenAI’s health-focused strategies are positioning AI as a primary point of contact for medical guidance, with Mordani noting, 'It doesn't really replace medical professionals, but it's becoming a powerful first step in understanding your questions.'
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00:00Hello and welcome to a world where science, technology and health collide.
00:05From a single bite of a Golgappa that locked a woman's jaw,
00:08to AI chat box that can guide your health before you see a doctor.
00:13From the ethical dilemmas of designer babies,
00:16to nutritional rules being turned upside down with a flipped food pyramid.
00:21This week we take you to the front lines of the future,
00:24where every choice, every discovery and every bite could change your life.
00:30I'm Sreeha Murdani, this is Health 360.
00:33Health care is changing and your first medical conversation may no longer start in a clinic.
01:03With OpenAI's health-focused chat GPT,
01:06people around the world are turning to AI for symptom guidance,
01:10for health education and clarity before they even see a doctor.
01:15It doesn't really replace medical professionals,
01:18but it's becoming a powerful first step in understanding your health,
01:22asking the right questions and making informed choices.
01:26orphans.
01:28symmetric
01:41mouth
01:44Okay, I am going to help you.
02:11You can take any OTC painkiller.
02:20You don't have to really check for the doctor.
02:27For the first time in history, millions of people can ask this or this for medical advice.
02:35No waiting lines, no appointments, no jhamela of cues, waiting for the doctor to come in
02:41and help you with your medical problem.
02:43With OpenAI's introduction of the new feature Chat GPT Health, getting answers to your frequently
02:49asked medical problems or questions is getting easier actually.
02:54More customized, more personalized and more convincing.
02:59And that's where things really get complicated.
03:02Let's ask the doctors on what they have to say about AI convincing patients on what they
03:09have to do for their health.
03:11AI is intended to give confident answers.
03:16The second reason majorly is convenience.
03:19It is that whatever is available in your pocket, whatever is available in front of you, that
03:24is always much more readily available than let us say a doctor's advice.
03:29AI has already changed the way we get access to health information.
03:34AI can summarize your medical scans, give you health advice, tell you about what medicines
03:39to take.
03:40It can be extremely convincing.
03:43For many, this makes people believe that they are getting reliable information.
03:48Because for many across the world, healthcare systems are broken.
03:52So getting in their information from artificial intelligence is actually easier, sometimes
03:57even empowering.
04:00But is that really the case?
04:02Remember health is not just about giving out information.
04:05It is about judgment.
04:07It is about nuance.
04:09And that's where the role of a human, of a real doctor comes in.
04:14Isn't it doctor?
04:16Typically, AI is just responding to a prompt, which is written by someone who is just faced
04:22with a problem and using their own language.
04:24Now, AI inherently is not trained or even designed to work like a doctor.
04:30So there is a context that the answers that it gives many times are inaccurate.
04:35It looks at the internet presence of things as its repository of knowledge.
04:41And of course, it is known to hallucinate.
04:43There are other dimensions which are, it can just cook up answers sometimes.
04:47Those who, in fact, use AI do not take that with a pinch of salt, as they should, really.
04:53Healthcare is also one of the world's largest data markets.
04:58In India, this market is actually exploding.
05:00It's worth $500 billion already.
05:04And that's where there are concerns that have been raised as far as privacy and cybersecurity
05:08is concerned.
05:10The minute you feed data, all the data into your system, where does your privacy then really
05:15stand?
05:16So imagine if thousands of citizens are uploading their personal health data on ChatGPT, which
05:23very well knows, it might get leaked.
05:24It might get monetized by the private company.
05:26We must realize that, you know, this is an irreversible disaster, that more tech you deploy
05:31in health, telecom and tech, you will not be able to do away with it.
05:36People actually already struggle to tell the difference between online misinformation and
05:43advice that is given random advice, which is picked up online.
05:47AI raises the stakes here.
05:50Remember, the most commonly asked questions as far as AI is concerned has got to do with
05:55your diet, with your mental health.
05:58And all of these things need nuance, need judgment.
06:02These things, even self-diagnosis is what people are really asking AI about and the fallout for
06:09it is for us to see.
06:10It's important to check while the tool or perplexity or ChatGPT will give you an answer to your question, but that answer needs to be checked.
06:23Answer needs to be checked.
06:25The references that it gives needs to be checked.
06:28Many times you will see the references don't exist.
06:30The references are incorrect.
06:32So this is very important that you need to check this so that you're not getting misinformation.
06:39People tend to believe it sort of blindly and that is wrong.
06:43Healthcare has rules, ethical boundaries, licenses.
06:48Where does artificial intelligence then stand?
06:51AI can actually be a powerful companion only if you use it as a tool, not as a complete guide.
06:59AI can explain health but not live with the consequences.
07:04That part is still human.
07:06Let's consider some figures.
07:08More than 40 million people worldwide are asking about their health conditions, discussing their health with ChatGPT.
07:15Over 200 million people all over the world at least once a week consult their AI doctors.
07:24What may sound reasonable could actually be harming you in the longer run because that information and the answer lacks context.
07:33Something that a human can quickly catch.
07:35Science is no longer just curing disease.
07:39It is starting to shape human life even before birth.
07:42With advances in genetic engineering and DNA selection, the idea of designer babies has moved from sci-fi to real world debate.
07:52From preventing inherited illnesses to choosing physical and intellectual traits.
07:57The question is no longer can we but should we?
08:05Imagine a world where parents can choose their child's eye color, intelligence level or even athletic ability before the baby is born.
08:22This idea once limited to science fiction is now becoming scientifically possible through genetic technologies.
08:30Welcome to the world of designer babies.
08:33Designed babies are actually the child in which we are changing genetics or we are selecting the genetics deliberately.
08:44So those genetics can be related to some disease, those can be related to some traits, physical traits like height, eye color or skin color, hair color.
08:53So whenever we are deciding or we are changing the genetic or we are selecting from any particular genetic embryos we have, then we call it as a designer baby.
09:06So what can technology do?
09:08It addresses two areas, medical traits such as removing genes that cause inherited diseases like cystic fibrosis or Huntington's disease.
09:18Enhancement traits such as physical appearance, intelligence, height or athletic abilities.
09:23We can eliminate almost all the major diseases if you have a genetic disease in your family like any mental retardation, any developmental anomaly which has been found out to be genetic.
09:39If a gene has been identified for that, it can be cystic fibrosis, many unknown diseases as well, where a gene has been identified and then you can choose your embryo in which that gene is not there or the genetic composition of that embryo is normal.
09:56So there is a whole list of diseases which can be prevented.
09:59Whatever major diseases are there for which a genetic mutation exists and is well known, it can be prevented.
10:06So how are designer babies then created?
10:10In IVF nowadays, everybody is familiar of these terms like IVF, test tube babies.
10:15So I want to make it simplified.
10:17First of all, we stimulate a female partner of the couple and we retrieve eggs that is done under anesthesia.
10:26It's not a surgery, like without any incision, we take out eggs from the ovaries and then we examine them for whether they are healthy or unhealthy.
10:36Then these eggs, they are examined and screened and then we inject them with their partner sperm.
10:44And when the baby is formed, they are cultured outside for day, till day five.
10:49That was called as the day blastocyst.
10:53And we take out eggs, some five to six cells from them because blastocyst is a structure with 120 to 150 cells.
11:00And we take out only five to six cells and send them to genetic lab for their testing.
11:05The main use of designer babies today is medical.
11:09By selecting or editing embryos, doctors can reduce the risk of inherited genetic disorders such as cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia.
11:17Remember, a few months ago, the same technology was used to create eight embryos.
11:23Eight children were born in the UK using genetic material from three people to prevent devastating and often fatal conditions.
11:31In this case, mitochondrial disease.
11:35The problem arises when parents seek to turn kids into products rather than individuals.
11:40Like when you want a baby like this, when parents choose trades, they may begin to view the child as something to be perfected rather than accepted.
11:51This undermines the unconditional love that should define parenting.
11:55The problem arises when parents want their babies to look like this, absolutely perfect.
12:01The perfect hair, fair skin, rosebud lips, light colored eyes.
12:07When parents want their babies to be absolutely perfect like this and want to use genetic editing for this purpose, for aesthetic reasons, it raises ethical and moral questions.
12:20Imperfection is part of what makes us human.
12:23By eliminating trades deemed undesirable, society risks sending the message that some lives are more valuable than others.
12:31What if everything you knew about healthy eating was backwards?
12:35The classic food pyramid, long held as the gold standard for nutrition, is now being challenged.
12:43Sugars and processed foods are being pushed down.
12:45Healthy fats and proteins are moving to the top, replacing carbs.
12:50This flipped pyramid promises to change how we eat, sink and fuel our bodies every single day.
12:58Just more.
13:05For decades, the food pyramid shaped how we eat.
13:11It influenced what families cooked at home, what children learned in school and what was served in hospitals across the country.
13:19But nutrition science doesn't stand still.
13:22And now the food pyramid has changed.
13:25And that too, dramatically.
13:27The US Health Department has officially reworked the model and according to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the update wasn't optional, it was necessary.
13:38The new food pyramid flips the old one right on its head.
13:41Instead of grains forming the foundation as it did before, the inverted pyramid as we see it right now, places protein, healthy fats, dairy, fruits and vegetables right at the top, representing the foods that should make up most of our diet.
13:59Foods to be eaten sparingly now sit at the bottom.
14:03This change matters, especially because for many students, the food pyramid is one of the first nutrition lessons they learn as early as 4th grade.
14:13Why was this necessary then, this change?
14:15The original food pyramid, remember, introduced in the late 20th century, placed bread, rice, cereal and pasta at the base.
14:23People were encouraged to eat large amounts of carbohydrates, while fats and sweets were pushed to the top and labelled as foods to avoid.
14:33But over time, problems emerged.
14:36Rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease climbed up.
14:40Researchers began to question whether the old pyramid focused too much on quantity and not enough on the food quality.
14:49It wasn't just the graphic that was flawed.
14:50The hierarchy itself needed a bit of a rethink here.
14:55Grains, once the foundation of every meal, have now been reduced to the smallest portion in your plate.
15:02Ideally, of course.
15:03In their place, protein, dairy, healthy fats, fruits and vegetables dominate this new pyramid.
15:11So why were carbs rarely emphasised on back then?
15:14Well, at that time, carbohydrates are viewed as an efficient energy source, especially in a world recovering from food shortages and economic instability.
15:24But that context no longer reflects modern lifestyles.
15:28A broader definition of health, one of the most noticeable updates is the addition of physical activity as a foundational element.
15:36This reflects a major shift in thinking.
15:39Health isn't just about what we eat.
15:41It also is about how we move.
15:43Daily activity is now considered essential to overall well-being.
15:48Another major change is the focus on whole foods.
15:52Whole grains, fruits and vegetables are prioritised over refined carbohydrates.
15:56Foods like brown rice and whole wheat bread provide fibre and sustained energy, while fruits and vegetables deliver essential vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.
16:08Now, rethinking fats.
16:09Perhaps the most controversial shift is how fats are treated.
16:14Instead of avoiding fats altogether, making them the big villain right out there, the new pyramid distinguishes between healthy and unhealthy fats.
16:23Yes, olive oil, nuts, seeds and fish are encouraged for their heart and brain benefits.
16:29Trans fats and excessive processed fats are discouraged.
16:33But fat itself is no longer the enemy.
16:36And that really is my favourite change.
16:39The old approach was about highly processed foods, added sugars, refined carbs and chemical additives were actually allowed in moderation.
16:47That you can consume some amount of it.
16:50But the new approach is a little drastic.
16:53It's a strong push, a much needed one, to reduce ultra-processed foods, added sugars and refined carbs altogether.
17:01The emphasis is now on real, minimally processed foods.
17:06For years, critics argued that fat was unfairly vilified while sugar was quietly protected.
17:12And I completely agree with that negative campaign.
17:15That era is thankfully ending.
17:18Dairy and protein take centre stage here.
17:21Previously, low-fat or skim dairy was recommended, while full-fat options were discouraged.
17:27Now, cheese and other dairy products sit at the top of the pyramid, with full-fat milk approved for both general diets and school meals.
17:36Protein and dairy, especially full-fat dairy, now dominate the food pyramid, replacing the grain-heavy base of the past.
17:44Saturated fats are no longer demonised.
17:47They're considered healthy when consumed in moderation.
17:50This marks the end of the long-standing campaign against healthy fats.
17:55The bigger picture, the updated food guide also promotes hydration, mindful eating, regular physical activity.
18:02The pyramid isn't just a change in shape.
18:05It's really changed the philosophy and the way we look at food.
18:09One moment, one bite.
18:11What started as a simple love for Gol Gappa, turned into a medical shock no one saw coming.
18:19A Pakistani woman took a single bite of her favourite street snack and that one mouthful left her with a locked jaw.
18:27Years of discomfort and the possibility of surgery.
18:29Something similar also happened in India.
18:34This is the story of how a harmless snack became a lifelong problem.
18:39We're telling you about a rare yet serious complication associated with jaws getting locked.
18:46Here's more.
18:59What has health or help we succeed got to do with Gol Gappa's?
19:07So while we were researching for our stories really, we came across something that we found interesting and confusing for a second actually because it had a connection with Gol Gappa's.
19:18So we decided to have a cheat day today and also tell you about this rather uncommon medical problem.
19:26Uncommon, but serious nevertheless, first the cheat day.
19:42Well a simple act of enjoying Gol Gappa's has put some people into trouble.
19:47It's got less to do with Gol Gappa's but more to do with this rare occurrence of your jaw getting locked once you open it wide
19:54to put the Pani Puri, the Gol Gappa in your mouth.
19:58What really is this then?
20:00Doctors answer these questions.
20:03We are listening to the story about the lady who's tried to swallow Gol Gappas and because of which she had terrible jaw related problems.
20:09So let me tell you that yes, though a bit of an exaggeration, it is possible.
20:13It is known to happen and let me explain this phenomenon to you.
20:16It is called a dislocation of the temporal mandibular joint.
20:19Also loosely called a jaw dislocation.
20:22This happens if you open the mouth very widely and if your ligaments are slightly loose and in that moment, the jaw will dislocate.
20:31So how can doing something as simple as this lead to jaw dislocation?
20:35Why something simple like this can lead to a jaw dislocation is because of the anatomy of the joint.
20:43This is a hinge joint.
20:44If you understand the way our jaw is made, it's a very complex and a very beautiful joint.
20:49It serves a very important function of making us grind and chew our food.
20:54It is unfortunate.
20:55It is rare.
20:56But it is known to happen.
20:57What should a person do right away if that happens?
21:05The process of opening up this jaw dislocation or lock jaw is by taking your thumb, maybe protect your thumb with a gauze or a handkerchief, put it inside the person's mouth and then yank the mouth down and then push it back.
21:25So when you pull it down and push it back, the joint that has got dislocated will come back to its original position.
21:31There is usually a very satisfying click that you hear when the joint goes back into position and the person feels better and safer after that.
21:38Be sure to put a restraining bandage for some time so that the jaw does not dislocate again because the ligaments and muscles have become a little loose.
21:46If you cannot do it yourself, you must rush to an emergency.
21:50It is a simple procedure.
21:52Doctors in emergency are trained to handle this.
21:57Doctors say jaw dislocation while eating Golgap Pass is extremely rare.
22:02It can happen in other cases also if you open your mouth extremely wide.
22:08As long as you don't force your mouth wider than usual, you should be okay.
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