Personalized food and medicine
A crucial technology of the future
The current status quo for medicine is “1 type fits all”. Everyone gets the same medicine for the disease they have. We don’t consider the fact that the medicine may be completely ineffective to someone or even damaging to someone. People are spending money on a medicine that doesn't even cure them, and instead harm them. This includes food as well.
Many things can be a factor in how a person reacts to a “1 type fits all” medicine. Things like age, environment, conditions, past medication, ancestors, genes, and more are such factors.
There is an easy solution for this: personalized medicine/food.
What is personalized food and medicine?
Personalized food and medicine are pretty self-explanatory. Basically food and medicine perfect for you. Based on your necessities, restrictions, and genetic code, we can make a drug for a disease that is 10x more effective because it is personalized for you. Not only that, but we can also make food personalized to your needs like if you have diabetes or lack iron, we can adjust the amount of sugar or iron in the food.
We can use the personalized medicine meant for one person on multiple similar people as well. So it will be 10x as effective and 1000 other people.
With such an amazing technology, what's the catch?
Personalized food/medicine: the cons
Time, tools, and cost. Creating foods that are specific to your necessities takes a lot of time and precision. Creating a variation of a cure takes equally or even greater time. The right and proper tools are necessary for creating a personalized medicine or food, and these can be hard to obtain. Cost is an obvious factor but as we progress more into personalized medicine and food, the price will drop drastically as it has done with every new technological advancement. Yet time and tools seem to be the only thing impeding the advancement and development of this technology.
The solution
2 words; 3D printing. Yes, you heard me right, 3D printing. We are able to print food and medicines with 3D printing by pulverizing the raw food ingredient to make it a paste. To understand 3D printing better, you can check out my article on it. Using 3D printing we can better construct food by putting precise measurements of the ingredients we need and if necessary, cook it with a laser. We can cut down the time to make a personalized medicine to 1–2 hours and personalized food to 45 minutes.
With 3D printing, we can effectively make personalized food and medicine in under 2hrs. We can also make much better personalized food by being able to put precise measurements of ingredients we need. Like iron or sugar; we can add more iron and put in precise amounts of sugar easily.
Problems with 3D printing
Of course, with such an amazing technology there will be a catch. With 3D printing, the cons are cost and it's not as advanced. A 3D food printer can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000. The next con is that 3D printers aren’t as advanced and haven’t reached their peak yet. The technology of printing food and medicine is still relatively new. If we spend some time and money to develop this technology, we will solve both problems as the more we use it, the cheaper and more advanced it becomes. Take the computer as an example, a long time ago, a 16-bit minicomputer costs $28,500 and now a 64-bit CPU costs $1,300. Crazy right? I believe the same will happen with 3D printers where the machine will be much cheaper and much more advanced.
The future
3D printers could be in hospitals where you would just have to give your genetic information, and they could whip up a personalized cure for you in 1–2 hours. You could also print food for you to eat based on your necessities whether it's low carbs, high iron, etc in under 45 minutes. This technology will revolutionize the healthcare industry and change the world.
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Quick re-cap
- “1 type fits all”
Currently, medicines follow the “1 type fits all” rule where there aren’t medicines meant/perfect for people. The medicine they give may be ineffective or even harmful to these people due to their genetic information, age, environment, conditions, past medication, ancestors, etc. This includes food as well as they may not always be accustomed to some people.
- Personalized medicines/food
Personalized food and medicine basically food and medicine perfect for you based on your necessities, restrictions, and genetic code. With this, we can make medicines 10x more effective for you and people similar to you. Your personalized medicine is also 10x as effective for more than 1,000 other people! Personalized food could have fewer crabs or more iron based on your needs and restrictions. In any food you want, you could adjust the ingredients.
- Problems with personalized medicine/food
Time, tools, and cost. Making personalized medicine and food can take a lot of time, and is expensive. The right tools necessary may be unavailable in some places or are too expensive. Cost is a huge factor, but as we progress more into personalized medicine and food, the price will drop drastically. Yet it is still a big problem right now.
- The solution
3D printing. With 3D printing, we can easily print food and medicines by pulverizing the ingredients to make them a paste. Check out more about 3D printing in my article. We can easily reduce the time to create personalized food to 45 minutes and personalized medicine to 1 to 2 hours. We can also put exact measurements of ingredients we want in our food with 3D printing like more iron or less sugar.
- Problems with the solution
Cost and how it’s not as advanced. A 3D food printer can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000. They are also aren’t as advanced and haven’t reacher their peak. If we put time and money into this technology, it will become much cheaper and much more advanced.
- The future
Imagine you could walk into a hospital and just give your genetic information, and they could make a personalized medicine in 1 to 2 hours. They could also make personalized food meant for you in 45 minutes. This technology will revolutionize the healthcare industry.
