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I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

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Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#181

Post by next_xibalba »

sksksk wrote: post #95
chrisfosterelli wrote: post #20

Health metrics are absolutely tarnished by a lack of proper context. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that you can't reliably take a concept as broad as health and reduce it to a number. We see the same arguments over and over with body fat percentages, vo2 max estimates, BMI, lactate thresholds, resting heart rate, HRV, and more. These are all useful metrics, but it's important to consider them in the proper context tha…

>This article gave an LLM a bunch of health metrics and then asked it to reduce it to a single score, didn't tell us any of the actual metric values, and then compared that to a doctor's opinion. Why anyone would expect these to align is beyond my understanding. This gets to one of LLMs' core weaknesses, they blindly respond to your requests and rarely push back against the premise of it.

I read somewhere that LLM chat apps are optimized to return something useful, not correct or comprehensive (where useful is defined as the user accepts it). I found this explanation to be a useful (ha!) way to explain to friends and family why they need to be skeptical of LLM outputs.

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#182

Post by pengaru »

wawayanda wrote: post #16

A year or so ago, I fed my wife's blood work results into chatgpt and it came back with a terrifying diagnosis. Even after a lot of back and forth it stuck to its guns. We went to a specialist who performed some additional tests and explained that the condition cannot be diagnosed with just the original blood work and said that she did not have the condition. The whole thing was a borderline traumatic ordeal that I'm…

> A year or so ago, I fed my wife's blood work results into chatgpt

Why would you consult a known bullshit generator for anything this important?

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#183

Post by colechristensen »

steveBK123 wrote: post #130
colechristensen wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd go so far to say this is probably the case for most people. Your average person is in really poor fitness-shape but just fine health-shape. Modern medicine has failed to move into the era of subtlety and small problems and many people suffer as a result. Fitness nerds and general non-scientists fill the gap poorly so we get a ton of guessing and anecdotal evidence and likely a whole lot of bad advice. Doctors wo…

It’s also cultural. Most American doctors don’t bother to tell people if they are overweight and out of shape. It’s not something their customers reward.

I mean... most people already know, it's not like either of those things come as a surprise to anybody.

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#184

Post by uriegas »

There are some research projects out there that use LLMs for health diagnostics. Here's one: https://cs.stanford.edu/people/jure/pubs/med-pmlr23.pdf

They usually require more data It is not a great idea to diagnose anything with so few information. But in general I am optimistic of the use of LLMs on health.

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#185

Post by Nicook »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #140
FeteCommuniste wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most notorious of which is BMI; it is practically a category error to infer someone's health or risk by individual BMI, and yet doing so remains widespread amongst people that are supposed to know better. BMI works fine for people who aren't very muscular, which is the great majority of people. Waist to height ratio might be more informative for people with higher muscle mass.

As a person who has been told I'm "morbidly obese" for decades now, I will say that doctors at almost every level look at your chart not you. I've been told time and time again that until I get my weight under control, my health will suffer. I'm 5'8" and weigh on average 210lbs. My BMI isn't even morbidly obese, it is 31, which is just "regular" obese, but on top of that, a DEXA scan shows that I am actually only 25%…

I mean those stats arent good...

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#186

Post by coldtea »

prmoustache wrote: post #171
coldtea wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When humans talk, they use generalizations (and don't need to annouce them). Here it means that most doctors don't care about that. Follow that rule next time you read such a statement in a context that's not formal math.

> most That is not even true. We are talking anecdotal evidence here.

Yes, humans have found that you don't need officially stamped statistics (and in many cases they're unreliable or "doctored" anyway), and that they can make general observations on their own, through something they call experience.

And a near universal experience with doctors for anybody paying attention is that.

One can reject it or accept it and improve upon it after checking its predictive power, or they can pause their thinking and wait for some authority to give them the official numbers on that.

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#187

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

coldtea wrote: post #163
prmoustache wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doctor's don't care about that Literally all of them?

When humans talk, they use generalizations (and don't need to annouce them). Here it means that most doctors don't care about that. Follow that rule next time you read such a statement in a context that's not formal math.

> When humans talk, they use generalizations

All humans?

Sorry :)

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#188

Post by joshhart »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #140
FeteCommuniste wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most notorious of which is BMI; it is practically a category error to infer someone's health or risk by individual BMI, and yet doing so remains widespread amongst people that are supposed to know better. BMI works fine for people who aren't very muscular, which is the great majority of people. Waist to height ratio might be more informative for people with higher muscle mass.

As a person who has been told I'm "morbidly obese" for decades now, I will say that doctors at almost every level look at your chart not you. I've been told time and time again that until I get my weight under control, my health will suffer. I'm 5'8" and weigh on average 210lbs. My BMI isn't even morbidly obese, it is 31, which is just "regular" obese, but on top of that, a DEXA scan shows that I am actually only 25%…

Huh. The standard in your case is to measure waist circumference if BMI is high. Did no doctor do that? As long as you are below 40” or 37” if Asian you are considered good to go.

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#189

Post by 6stringmerc »

In my view the people, no matter walk of life or education level or societal class, who ask “AI” systems mental or physical health questions are modern day incarnations of customers who went to palm readers, tarot card sessions, or used to rely on televangelists for hope and meaning.

I strongly dislike the author conflating HIPAA with PHI but this is a losing battle for me. And clearly editors don’t spot it, neither do AI systems - where is Clippy?! It simply serves as an indicator the author is a pretty ignorant medical consumer in the US, and this case study is stunning. Some people really should not be allowed to engage with magic.

Re: I let ChatGPT analyze a decade of my Apple Watch data, then I called my doctor

#190

Post by thewebguyd »

steveBK123 wrote: post #130
colechristensen wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd go so far to say this is probably the case for most people. Your average person is in really poor fitness-shape but just fine health-shape. Modern medicine has failed to move into the era of subtlety and small problems and many people suffer as a result. Fitness nerds and general non-scientists fill the gap poorly so we get a ton of guessing and anecdotal evidence and likely a whole lot of bad advice. Doctors wo…

It’s also cultural. Most American doctors don’t bother to tell people if they are overweight and out of shape. It’s not something their customers reward.

> customers

And there's the problem. That they are "customers" that pay, either direct or via insurance, or via government insurance vs. a nationalized healthcare system, and I mean healthcare not nationalized health insurance

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