alt Hacker News> The reality is we need more doctors. A lot more.
I think building a better prevention layer is more important.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that we need more doctors (and nurses, and physios, and dietetists, and ...), but it is much easier to scale a good prevention system than the number of workers in healthcare.
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lotsofpulp • yesterday at 3:00 PM
Do you have a plan on preventing the effects of aging, such as mutations in DNA and wear and tear?
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Widespread use of GLP-1 agonist drugs will prove to be the most effective prevention layer. I absolutely support people living healthier lifestyles in order to delay the onset of the chronic diseases that drive the majority of medical care demand. But on a population basis, attempts at lifestyle interventions have been broadly ineffective. A lot of the chronic disease burden including type-2 diabetes, hypertension, heart failure, MSK, etc is downstream of obesity so if GLP-1 drugs can cause a lot of people to lose weight then we might see some real improvements within a decade.
To be clear I'm not suggesting that everyone should be on GLP-1 drugs, and it's obviously better to maintain a healthy lifestyle and body composition without those drugs. But for people who can't or won't do that on their own the drugs seem to work pretty well. There's also promising evidence that they cause reduction in alcoholism and other substance abuse disorders.