In the not too distant future will medications and supplements be tailored for your particular situation? Should a 105 pound woman and a 205 pound man both be taking the same two tablet dose of aspirin for example?
I don’t take any supplements or medications yet, but I still think it’s interesting. I started thinking about this after hearing about people taking vitamin D at different times during the day with different impacts on their sleep.
Our bodies produce vitamin D after being exposed to sunlight, but since many people don’t get adequate sun exposure they’ll take a vitamin D supplement. Some people found their sleep disturbed by taking it later in the day or at night. Basically taking vitamin D soon after you wake seems to be the best time; mimicking the time you’d traditionally be getting sunlight. So taking it later in the day confuses your body’s clock. When the folks with sleep disruptions who were taking vitamin D switched to taking it soon after waking their sleep issues went away.
That example is only about timing, what about all of your particular information the parameters that make you… you. Maybe soon, companies and doctors will begin to customize medications and supplements to your size, age, and sex. Maybe even a few other easily measured parameters will be factored in to make the model even better like race, sleep patterns, or how many drinks you have at night.
Genetics, testing, and medicine are only getting more sophisticated and computing power is increasing and getting cheaper so maybe personalized medicines aren’t far away.
Is an iMed app for your iPhone on the near horizon? It could easily transfer your particulars to the pharmacy’s data base to help create medications to suit you. It might even keep you honest about your weight if you knew it was going to be a factor in getting your medicine right.