#146 - AI And Your Health

We weigh the promise of AI-driven medicine against the risks of handing our bodies and relationships over to algorithms. We land on a simple standard: AI can boost accuracy and efficiency, but human oversight, empathy, and real community keep health care from becoming hollow. 

• AI in modern medicine through imaging, radiology, cancer detection, drug discovery, and predictive diagnostics 
• Why data quality matters and how incomplete context leads to bad recommendations 
• The case for AI plus clinician partnership rather than AI alone 
• What happens when AI and a physician disagree and why rapport still matters 
• Wearables, HRV, recovery signals, and practical behavior change 
• When biohacking becomes anxiety and health tracking becomes an idol 
• Social media algorithms, attention manipulation, and rising relational risks 
• AI romantic companions, pornography, and the “yes-man” problem in intimacy 
• A narrow use case for dementia companionship that can support caregivers 

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Transcript

AI Companions And Loneliness

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Today on the Frontline Health Podcast. I had a friend whose father was uh suffering from Alzheimer's andor dementia, and he set up AI to actually have conversations with his father, and it it created a companionship for his father on stories that he could tell over and over and over again, and AI would have no issue with it. And I think that's one way that I have seen where AI has been helpful if that person is by themselves or lonely and it gives them an opportunity to talk at end stage of life or with dementia or Alzheimer's.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

I would caution somebody who is dealing with loneliness and relying on a chatbot uh and they're just you know in good health. Try to prioritize the relationships in your life. Try to prioritize your family if you have family members that you can reach out to and grow relationships with, try to prioritize friends, uh, relationships with your with your church family, get plugged into a church if you're not, and um, that would be the the harder but more beneficial road for someone who is not dealing with Alzheimer's or dementia.

AI In Modern Medicine

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Frontline Health Podcast by Centurion Health, where we share health news, tips, and insights to help you take ownership of your health. I'm Evan Patrick, and with me is Troy Duell, founder and CEO of Centurion Health, and we're diving into a huge topic today, AI and our health. We all know AI is everywhere and it's moving faster than almost any technology in history. This is truly the next industrial revolution. And we know that healthcare may become one of the industries most transformed by AI over the next decade. While it could dramatically improve health outcomes, it may also create entirely new ones. Troy, what are your thoughts on this topic?

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Uh, AI is one of those things that I think is absolutely insane when you see the growth that we have had of AI just within the last two years. You know, AI, that commercial that we always had with IBM and Watson, that was an early AI, but that was 30 years ago, uh, 40 years ago when they first started it. It has since really taken on kind of a mind of its own. And I think there is a lot to be excited about with certain things because it will help speed up, it will help uh educate, but there's also a little bit to be uh fearful of as you get into it because it's having to get its information from someone and something. It doesn't just create information out of a vacuum. And if it does, then we don't really want to listen to it, which is where those hallucinations coming in start to come in to to play with it. But uh yeah, I I think I'm I'm both uh excited and apprehensive about it because of just how fast it's going. And certainly we don't want to just stick our head in the sand and um put our fingers in our ears and go, hey, this whole revolution isn't happening, but instead, how do we embrace this revolution and use it for good and bringing about the best outcome possible for us?

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Yeah, and I think the the big question that we want to answer today is are we heading toward the healthiest society ever or one of the most disconnected? There's a lot of nuance in between there. So we're just gonna kind of be sharing our opinions and our thoughts on what this might look like. And to kind of kick things off, let's take a look at AI in modern medicine. We already know uh through some studies that we have looked at in nature, in the Nature Journal, a 2024 study was published that showed that some AI systems were able to detect certain diseases and imaging scans with accuracy comparable to or better than human specialists. Obviously, a big win there. AI is already being used in radiology, cancer detection, drug discovery, and predictive diagnostics. And researchers estimate that AI could save the healthcare industry hundreds of billions of dollars annually through efficiency improvements. So obviously, a lot of really great things that we that we see here with AI advancing healthcare, just like it is so many other industries. But I think the big concern for a lot of people is that uh there would be a reduction in quality or that there's not quite a level of um the same level of trustworthiness that you would get with human hand, with uh fewer human hands being involved in things. So so what are your kind of your thoughts on this, Troy?

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, I mean, I think if you think about medicine as a whole, anytime we find a physician that we like, it's usually because they have a great bedside manner. So if you start talking about AI, you are no longer talking about a bedside manner, you're no longer talking about personal health care, you're talking about an algorithm that is able to spit out the information. You know, I think I heard a study, it may have been out at the University of Michigan, that they did an AI-assessed medical treatment or medical review against humans, and AI did 84% better than the humans. So I think you'll decrease the level of mistakes, you'll decrease other things. But what I hope ultimately is that there is kind of a merger that you have AI come in to help uh put all the pieces together to have a resource that you put all these symptoms in that the doctor is able to put in, and it helps then uh the doctor come alongside that and say, yeah, this makes sense, and always have a human check it, because I think that's where that's where the true help comes in of uh AI and medicine. But if it's just AI by itself and there's no bedside manner and there's no uh walking alongside and having compassion for people, which I mean, we know doctors that that don't have a bedside manner and don't have compassion, and we're like, what most people don't like going to them? So it's already built into the system that you have some people who just run the algorithm, which is what most medicine is ultimately, is going through an algorithm saying, if this, then this is your outcome. And AI does it well, but can it truly care for these individuals, which is the part of medicine that I think we need to build on?

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Yeah, I totally agree with everything that you just said there. And I think one of the biggest things that you know we have learned in the ways that we use AI, uh, and that, you know, others have pointed out is that AI is only good as the data that it is given. And so when it has incomplete data, it can make some recommendations that are based on that data, but are not appropriate for the situation that it's commenting on because it has incomplete information. And I've even heard stories already of doctors who have implemented AI in their practices, uh, but some of them are using it irresponsibly to create treatment plans and they're not giving it the level of oversight, like you said. And so it's it's basically coming up with things that are wrong that need to at least be checked uh and can can result in you know increased increases in efficiency, but it's not quite there to where it is doing something as well as as a doctor might be able to do it. So uh what happens when AI in a physician actually disagree about something?

SPEAKER_01 7:42

That's a great question because you know that that's gonna happen. And uh I would think that you would, depending on what it is, because I'm hopeful that these physicians again already have a relationship with the patient to say, okay, AI disagrees with you here or disagrees with my assessment here, but this is why I want to go down this path because of XYZ based on the relationship and rapport that we have. And I think what would be better for you overall and your psyche would be to go down this path than just saying, here's the information, it spits out what we need to do and not take into account how that's going to affect the individual as a whole.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Yeah, I think that's so right. Um, there was a pharmacist that I talked to once who told me about his patients going to or his customers going to Dr. Google before they went to him. And oftentimes Dr. Google would would lead them to believe something that was not entirely accurate because Dr. Google does not know about their medical history and the other medications they are on and that kind of thing. It's the same thing with AI, except even to a greater extent. My wife has told me how she has had to, you know, really calmly and and patiently explain some things to patients who are going back and forth with, you know, Chat GPT or something, and they're getting these recommendations that would be good if it wasn't for their liver failure or for their alcoholism or for their history of heart disease. You know, there are all these factors that she, as someone who has who has all of the data inputs of their medical history and the the talks that she has had with them, uh, the AI might not have. So a lot to go in there. And I think the the takeaway that we're landing on is uh human oversight and human communication and interaction and empathy is always going to be crucially important in healthcare.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Totally agree. And I think to your to your wife's point, if if the AI, whichever AI it is, has the same exact information and knows everything that your wife knows or that the doctor knows, then at that point you should almost come to the same conclusion. And that's when if a difference comes in, you really have to look to, well, how is this going to affect that individual long term? How is this gonna affect their uh ability to get out of bed in the morning? Because we've just AI decided on this treatment, but it didn't take into account that it may cause them to be sluggish, not have energy, um, whatever it is to get back to work and get them to be um excited about getting up the next day, whereas a doctor should uh because they're in the uh practice of caring for people.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

That's a that's a great way to put it. It's called health care for a reason.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

That's

Wearables And Personalized Biohacking

SPEAKER_01 10:34

right.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Um, you know, another area that we see this being applied in the in the realm of health and wellness is in people's personalized health and their biohacking. We know that wearable health technology usage has exploded globally. You know, I've got my garment on, it tracks my sleep, it tracks my heart rate, stress recovery, all kinds of things. And sometimes it picks up on things even before I do. AI systems can now analyze biomarkers, nutrition data, sleep patterns, and fitness metrics to generate customized recommendations. One thing that I want to ask, Troy, we see people like Brian Johnson out there who, you know, started the don't die movement, who if you if you watch any of his content, and I and I think he does some of it for clicks, but he he tracks so many different things. It's like you you wonder, does he do anything else in his life besides just worry about different data points when it comes to his health? So at what point does this actually become unhealthy?

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Well, I think you said it. If it becomes a point of worry and a point of anxiety, then it is no longer healthy. What we need to be doing is tracking these things to optimize our health. But if it pulls us away from relationships, if it pulls us away from our work because all we're doing is worrying about this, or if it keeps us up at night because we're like, I'm not getting enough sleep, and you just get this vicious cycle of, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? Then it's really not doing what we were hoping it would do, which is to optimize our health. And there comes a point when we have to ultimately just trust God because we know that at some point we are going to die, and you are not gonna put that off. So what we should have as a perspective is how do we um take what we have and steward it well that we can live the best that we can in this body that we've been given, but not create an idol of our bodies and an idol of this health piece. We want to make sure that we maintain health to the point that we can be productive, that we can continue to excel at whatever it is that we're called to do and that we're doing. But um beyond that, I I think it becomes an idol that we have to be careful of.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Yeah, absolutely. Um I can tell you, I can tell you a quick story of one way that my Garmin has actually, and the AI that goes into the app has actually helped me uh recently with something that I didn't even realize. Um so a good use for this. Uh I've been so for about the past four months, I've been running 10 plus miles per week, and I've also been lifting two or three days per week. So really, and I've been very consistent with that. And I started to experience a lot of like fatigue that accumulated over time of doing of doing that training. And my garment actually started noticing that my heart rate variability was off, and it started telling me, you need to rest and recover, you need to rest and recover, you need to rest and recover. Well, over the next couple of weeks or so, I noticed I was not able to lift the same weights that I could before. I was my runs, I felt just so fatigued and was running slower and slower. And when I listened to it and finally did rest and recover, I it got better. And so uh I do think it is cool that you can use these wearables, that they can pick up on things that even you are not aware of because I wouldn't have been aware that my heart rate variability was too low in my sleep and that that was a sign that, hey, you need to slow down and rest for a little bit and let your body recover. So I think that's a uh one way, one small way that AI does kind of help us. But I'm wondering, can it help with even more serious things to where it could actually prevent disease before symptoms appear or pick up on some things earlier than human detection alone?

SPEAKER_01 14:36

No doubt it can. I think if you start to look at diabetes, uh blood pressure, other things like that, you can really begin to track that and you probably get an earlier awareness because your sleep cycles, how hot your body's getting, all those things can play a part in some disease progression and hopefully get it ahead of time. And I think that's uh that's one way, kind of like what you're talking about, where if you'd have continued and you hadn't had that information, you probably would have just been like, what is going on with my body? Why am I so tired? And you would have just continued to cycle down to the point that your your body could have broken down and um and either hurt yourself or created more pain along the way. So um, yeah, I think that's a a great example of where AI can step in and help us understand what's going on. But the key is not just understanding it, but then executing on that understanding and what do we do next steps if we find out that that's going on. Um, and that's that I think is the hard part is what do we do next and how do we keep it from becoming um that idle? And how do we keep it from causing us to worry about every little thing if we get this information?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Absolutely. So

AI Relationships And Family Risk

SPEAKER_00 16:03

we want to try kind of transition now and take a turn towards some things uh that where we really see AI could be a threat to our health, uh, also you know, ways that it could help, but um, we already are seeing some things going on in our society that are causing issues for marriages and for families and for children and their mental health. You know, social media algorithms are a form of AI. And I don't think a lot of people realize that. And, you know, they maximize engagement and stream time. Many experts believe that future AI systems are gonna become even better at manipulating attention and emotional behavior. And we even are starting to see some things like AI-generated pornography and AI romantic uh companions as rapidly growing industries. So I just want to open this up and ask your opinions. Could AI-generated relationships damage marriages and families?

SPEAKER_01 17:01

I think absolutely, but it's like anything else. You can uh begin to share things with AI that you wouldn't share with your wife or your husband. And at that point, you've become now closer to this technology than you are to your own family. And we can get lost in it. I think people currently can get lost in technology, they can get lost in TV shows, they can get lost in whatever it is that you know we talk it, we uh call it escapism. We're gonna find our escapes, and I think this is just another uh area that we could escape to, except even more dangerous because it's more realistic and people would be more inclined to be drawn towards that. You know, I I think I heard somebody say in the future, 20% of people are gonna be married to an AI machine or robot or whatever it is, which right now seems absolutely laughable, but we're already hearing about how uh there are AI boyfriends and girlfriends that are out there, and it's causing such damage and turmoil because uh I heard about teenagers who no longer engage with their family because they want to be upstairs talking to whatever AI agent it is, and that that is crazy to me, but uh it is part of what we have, and we we gotta learn how to deal with it.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Troy, I I listened to the John Deloney show. He's one of Dave Ramsey's people, he's a a clinical counselor, and he has, I mean, I have heard several people calling in within the past several months who are broken because they have gotten addicted to their AI relationship. And I think what people and it's ruining their marriages. I mean, it's it's it's it's like pornography or it's like cheating, it's having that same kind of impact on their relationships.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

And well, and and why wouldn't it? Because the AI machine is not gonna tell you something bad and tell you reality, exactly. It's there to make you feel good. And unfortunately, in human relationships, we're always gonna have, I'm always gonna have something that bothers my wife, and my wife will probably always have something that bothers me because we're human, right? Um, and you gotta learn how to work through that with AI. You don't have to work through it, you just live and have it tell you how wonderful you are.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

It's crazy. And I think that's what people need to understand and be cautious of is that these LLMs are designed to tell you what you want to hear. I think you and I, as we work with AI to try to you know accomplish different things more efficiently, we get frustrated because we will ask, we'll we'll be asking for honest feedback on something that we want to do, and it will just gaslight you and tell you, absolutely, that's a great plan, that's a great idea, uh, and all these things. And you're like, no, I don't want you to be a yes man. I want you to give me something that is is helpful and valuable. Well, when you extrapolate that to the romantic realm and you think about that, the LLM that is designed to have that type of relationship with you is going to give you everything that you want to hear. And like you said, in any real human relationship, you are never going to tell each other what you always want to hear. But hopefully, if if you love each other, you're going to always tell each other what you need to hear. And so that's the difference between an AI relationship and a human relationship. And so people just need to be aware of how powerful that is and the potential for destruction that it really can have in our relationships.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Totally agree. Now, on the flip side, I have heard of AI being used well in the scenario of had a friend whose father was uh suffering from Alzheimer's and or dementia, and he set up AI to actually have conversations with his father. And it it created a companionship for his father on stories that he could tell over and over and over again, and AI would have no issue with it. And I think that's one way that I have seen where AI has been helpful if that person is by themselves or lonely, and it gives them an opportunity to talk at end stage of life or with dementia or Alzheimer's, um, because it just keeps them feeling like they've got somebody in in in their corner working with them and gives the uh caregiver just a little bit of a reprieve to go away and then kind of gather themselves and come back. So that's the one time that I think I could say I could see some benefit in creating that world of conversation with something that's not real or not there.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

So yeah, I I I think. That's a super interesting use case. Um, because because definitely, obviously, like if you ever have have been in the position of a caregiver, or if you know people who have been in that, that is a very exhausting position and it's a very emotionally draining position, especially I think, as you mentioned, some of the repetitive nature of being around somebody with Alzheimer's, and you and they just you try to explain things to them again and again. You try to explain things that they've known for years, and it can be just very, very draining. And having an AI chatbot that doesn't care about that, that can actually engage hopefully in a healthy way with somebody who's struggling can be something. But I think I liken it to, you know, in the hospital, if somebody is terminal and you're just trying to ease their pain, you know they're going to continue regressing, you're going to give your that's going to be your primary concern is just making sure that they're comfortable and you're willing to give them something that you would not give to somebody who is going to see the other side because you might create more problems. So I think that's kind of what I what I see that situation as. And um something that I would I would caution people against if you are not uh dealing with Alzheimer's or something like or extreme. I would, I would, I would caution somebody who is dealing with loneliness and relying on a chat bot uh and they're just you know in good health. Try to prioritize the relationships in your life. Try to prioritize your family. If you have family members that you can can reach out to and grow relationships with, try to prioritize friends, uh relationships with your with your church family, get plugged into a church if you're not, and um, that would be the the harder but more beneficial road for someone who is not dealing with Alzheimer's or dementia.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Uh totally agree, couldn't have said it better myself, because we as humans need interaction with other people. Um and there are few few cases, that being the one, where I think it's it's okay and possible, but it still should not be the only interaction that they have. Uh humans still need to be a part of that. Um so but it can be used for good in that one particular case.

Boundaries, Benefits, And Overreliance

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Absolutely. So let's wrap this up, Troy. What excites you the most about the future of AI?

SPEAKER_01 24:23

I think if if we can create a scenario where there's a partnership, because AI no doubt does a better job of following algorithms and making sure that if if you say X, then this is the outcome that you're going to get with it. If you put in this input. And that partnered with uh medical practitioners who have the caring piece and can, as you mentioned earlier, have the right oversight with the AI algorithm or whatever machine that you're using. In that case, I think that can be a great use for uh the medical world and healthcare in general. I think it can also be great to help track our health and see what areas we might be able to improve and what areas that maybe we're overdoing it, like you said. So those are areas that I think could be huge um opportunities for AI to come in and really enhance our health and enhance our health care. So, but what about you? Where do you see uh the excitement in the future with AI?

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Yeah, I mean, I get really excited about the ways that I can use it to be way more efficient with all kinds of things. And it it helps me um, I don't know, just just buy back time that I lose to repetitive tasks and that kind of thing. Um, but then it also, like I mentioned earlier, some of the bio tracking stuff is really cool to me because I nerd out nerd out about some of that stuff sometimes. And so I think that's really cool. Um really, I mean, what it what it does is just increases our efficiency with so many different things. And um, you know, time is the most valuable resource. And I think just the the capabilities that it has to help us be be more efficient with things. On the other end of that, I do see uh that sometimes efficiency, sometimes the the process is very, very important with something, enduring a process to get to somewhere is is very, very important. I think authenticity is super important. And so there's the there's the chance to lose some of those aspects in whatever area we're we're applying AI to. So we have to be have to be cautious uh about those things. The reality that I that I land on is there are all kinds of existential rabbit holes we can go down that can get us uh worried about AI, but it's here and it's it's the reality of the world that we're living in. And so I think it's best that we we try to get ahead of it in the way that we think about it and have some healthy boundaries for it, but also some ways that we use it to be beneficial.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Totally agree. I I think um couldn't have said it better myself from the from the concern standpoint. I think if there is a concern, it's this over-reliance on AI from an individual standpoint, from your job standpoint, there's an over-reliance from a relational standpoint with a lot of people. And I think those are my biggest concerns. And how do you help train the next generation? The importance of having those relationships and building that and not expecting each relationship to be perfect like they have with AI. And I think that's where some of the concerns for me come in, is just that human interaction. Are we going to lose that ability? Um, I mean, we already see how AI is taking over some of the fast food restaurants, and you lose the interaction with uh learning how to talk to people. And I think that is a valuable job for a lot of people in for their first jobs is how do we have customer service? And we're getting out of that. And the further we go from that, the more uh danger we have of not being able to actually have a true relationship because we don't know how to to treat people or talk to them.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

That's right, that's very true. And um, there are a lot of uncertain, there's a lot of uncertainty uh around this topic, but we're here. And uh as always, my prayer is Jesus come quickly.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

That that is a great answer for sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Awesome.

Final Takeaways And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Well, thank you for this conversation, Troy. Hopefully this was beneficial to our listeners as we all kind of try to navigate these uncharted waters together. Uh, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Frontline Health Podcast. By Centurion Health, go out today, take ownership of your health because you are your best health advocate. If you enjoyed what you heard today on the podcast, please consider subscribing and leaving us a review. We would love to hear your comments or questions about anything we've talked about on the show. For more health news, tips, and insights, follow us at Centurion Health on Instagram, Facebook, X, and YouTube. And for safe, effective, and affordable healthcare products made in the USA to help you elevate your health in life, visit centurion.health. We look forward to you joining us next time on the Frontline Health podcast by Centurion.