View article

If you have ever looked at a car’s dashboard, you probably know that it can provide lots of important information about the car’s health—information that can help the owner keep the car running well. But did you know that our bodies need the same kind of attention? For a long time, doctors have typically diagnosed and treated patients after they get sick. But what if doctors could catch illnesses early, before they even cause symptoms? New technologies, including wearable devices like smartwatches and health-tracking apps, can help with this. Devices that monitor our bodies constantly will know what is “normal” for each person, so they can warn us of small changes happening in our bodies that might mean we are starting to get sick—before we even have symptoms! This approach is called precision medicine, and could have many benefits for healthcare, from controlling future pandemics to possibly even helping humans live longer! kids. frontiersin. org December| Volume| Article|