Possible solutions to our future healthcare problems

Dr Stefan Hajkowicz observes that caring about the future is a survival requirement across all cultures.

“Your ability to function and survive in this life depends on your ability to look forward,” says the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) senior principal scientist on strategy and foresight from Brisbane, Australia.

“And the ability of societies to function and to do well depends on their ability to look forward, and I think most of the failures we get, a lot of them are heavily tied to our inability to do foresight – we haven’t been able to look forward.”

While his job is to come up with potential future scenarios in order to enable governments and organisations to plan better, his research has also given him an insight into the kinds of possible trends that might offer solutions to future problematic healthcare megatrends.

It’s all about diet

One of these is the ageing of the world’s population, which, in tandem with the rise in non-communicable diseases, is expected to increase healthcare costs up to unsustainable rates.

As the problem is actually the increasing number of people growing older with chronic lifestyle diseases, the root of the issue lies with our unhealthy diets and lack of physical activity.

While he notes that he is not a dietitian, Dr Hajkowicz says: “When you look into a lot of societal trends right across the economy, you start to see which ones matter more or less.

“And I think this seemingly simple one of diet is what matters economically and socially so much.”

He adds: “I think there will be a sort of an awakening to these trends and issues, and we’ll start to look for foods that deliver more in terms of the functional characteristic of that food.”

He gives the example of a wholegrain product invented by CSIRO.

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Read more: One expert’s prediction of the future of our health

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“This is like a fine-grain powder that is a high-fibre supplement, so you can put it into a cereal that we eat, and it actually decreases the risk of heart disease.

“So, that’s one example of a functional food; you’re not only eating cereal, but you’re also decreasing your chance of heart disease,” he explains, adding that the high- fibre content also helps in losing, and keeping off, weight.

“I think that’s a microcosm of a broader functional food market that I think we will start to see emerge.”

Personalised food, in the same vein as personalised medicine, is also another diet trend he foresees emerging.

Among the factors driving this would be the general increase in various food intolerances around the world, as well as the fact that different people can react differently to the same types of food.

“The pathway to better health is often a different eating pattern for each individual.

“And if we are able to buy personalised food, based on our own unique genetics, we will end up healthier,” he says.

Unnecessary antibiotic use in both livestock and humans needs to be halted in order to help stop the looming antimicrobial resistance crisis. Photo: Filepic

Transport and sports

For the lack of physical activity, Dr Hajkowicz takes the larger view of what makes a healthy city.

“I have looked into data around the level of cycling that happens in a city and people’s health conditions.

“Amsterdam is a very healthy city, compared to Los Angeles, for example, which is quite an unhealthy city.

“Los Angeles has very high rates of car ownership and car usage; Amsterdam has a very low rate of car ownership and mostly they cycle,” he shares.

He adds: “There is quite a substantial body of research showing that those cities where people walk more, ride more, (and) there’s more public transport and lower rates of car ownership, typically, are healthier cities.”

He opines that the health benefits of the different types of transportation systems should be included in the cost-benefit analysis of building such infrastructure.

“So, if we build a bikeway, part of the benefit is people being able to ride their bikes to work, but another part of the benefit is the improved health that they would have and (the fact that) they’re going to be a lower cost to the healthcare system when they get older.”

Looking at sports, Dr Hajkowicz shares that there is a debate going on over whether the investment into high-performance sports translates into a higher level of community sports and individual physical activity.

“The Finnish system, for example, is one to look at, where they don’t care whether they win a gold medal or not at the Olympics.

“There’s not much investment in high-performance sport; it’s the other way around, they put most of their sports budget into community participation and getting people active,” he says.

“We want the general population stuff to happen, not just elite sport. We want everyone getting on the field and having a run.”

Stop the antibiotics!

When it comes to antimicrobial resistance, there are two main areas that need to be tackled: the use of antibiotics in livestock and in humans.

Says Dr Hajkowicz: “If you made me king of the world, I would stop the use of antibiotics in livestock production now.

“I’d say, ‘That’s it, you need to find another way of making livestock products without using antibiotics’, because that sort of widespread environmental application is just too dangerous.”

For humans, the main problem is getting both doctors and patients to practise and accept that not all infections require antibio- tics, only the bacterial ones.

He shares: “In Queensland, I think we’re doing a really good job of making sure anti- biotics aren’t prescribed by the doctor where it is a viral infection, because it doesn’t help. Antibiotics only help when it is a bacterial infection.

“And for a lot of the times it is prescribed, the net impact on the patient might be negative. If you take a high-strength antibiotic, it will knock out all your gut flora.

“There’s good bacteria in there as well, so you’ll need to take probiotics to reestablish it.”

He notes that “a lot of people need to have a pill to make it feel worthwhile, but it shouldn’t be seen that way”.

Source : Star2.com