Predicting death from a photo

AI can now predict a cancer patient’s risk of dying from a photograph of his or her face. According to an article in Scientific American, scientists trained AI to estimate people’s biological ages and to predict cancer patients’ odds of survival.

In a test group of 3,820 cancer patients, more than half of those with the highest risk score—as calculated by AI—died within just 90 days of when their photographs were taken. In a separate test group that included more than 38,000 cancer patients, those whose faces looked older than their chronological age also had a higher risk of dying.

For biological age, the giveaways tended to be parts of the forehead and the crease between the nose and mouth. For risk-of-death predictions, AI tended to focus on the bridge of the nose and on areas below the eyes. Unfortunately, the article noted, “It’s unclear why those areas specifically correlated with a person’s risk of death.” The article also did not describe or illustrate the specific characteristics of those facial areas that led to the predictions.

In the photos, it didn’t matter if a photograph showed a person frowning or smiling, with or without makeup, or in various kinds of lighting. For age prediction, AI was even able to account for common forms of plastic surgery, except for rhinoplasty. In that case, AI tended to rate people who’d had a nose job as slightly older in images taken after the surgery compared with images taken before it. Interesting!

The purpose of this technology is to provide an “extra data point in doctors’ decision making.” Right now, it’s just an idea. Maybe not such a good one.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

Medical aid in dying

I’ve noticed misunderstandings about medical aid in dying (MAID). Here’s the deal:

MAID has been legal in Switzerland since 1942.

In the US, MAID is allowed in 13 states. Legislation is pending in at least 16 other states. To receive MAID in the US you must be terminally ill with less than six months to live. Except for Oregon and Vermont, you must also be a resident of one of the states in which MAID is allowed.  

MAID is legal for residents of Canada. In 2021, Canada removed the requirement that a person’s death must be “reasonably foreseeable.” The central principle of Canada’s stance on euthanasia is autonomy—honoring a patient’s wishes to be in control.

As one Canadian physician wrote in a letter to the editor of The New York Times, “I agree that patients considering MAID deserve careful exploration of their suffering and access to counseling, palliative care and social support. But counseling should support patients’ decisions, not be another test they must pass before their choice is respected.…I have asked patients requesting MAID what they would need to no longer want it. Overwhelmingly, the answer is not counseling, housing or companionship. It is a cure, or a reversal of irreversible decline, something that medicine cannot offer.”

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

Movement and creativity

According to Scientific American, “Movement and creativity go hand in hand.” This is news to me, but apparently creative people have found this to be true. A musician speaks of writing music while on the hiking trail; an author finds running essential to her writing practice. Apparently, Beethoven, Henry David Thoreau, Maya Angelou, and Joyce Carol Oates have also combined movement and creativity.

Scientists are finding that consistent movement helps unlock words, notes, and brushstrokes for authors, musicians, and painters. But why? One Austrian researcher, who spent years studying the link between creativity and movement, found that the more his study participants moved—in terms of step count—the greater their creative output. Other scientists have found similar effects.

One hypothesis for this effect is that our current culture of multitasking “overloads our mental workspace,” and that going outside and moving about frees up space to create. Another theory is that movement boosts mood, which allows you to create.

There’s not an optimal dose of movement that is guaranteed to boost creativity, but some researchers find that cognitive benefits appear to begin after about three sessions per week of 30 to 60 minutes of activity. According to one scientist, “You start to develop new neurons on that dosage.” Furthermore, he adds, “you think more clearly and have the mental space to support creative thinking.”

I find that I come up with my best ideas in the middle of the night. But maybe that’s because I’d been outside moving around during the day. I should keep track.

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.

Dizziness

Recently, several people I know have been hit with bouts of dizziness. A year or so ago, I’d saved an article about dizziness that I’d seen in a medical journal. The article isn’t particularly helpful for my purposes, but it did let me know that dizziness is a common problem that affects an estimated 36.8 million people in the US every year, and accounts for nearly 2 million annual visits to the emergency room. 

Because the causes of dizziness can range from pathologic, such as stroke, to benign, such as positional vertigo, it presents a diagnostic challenge to ER clinicians.  

I can’t do justice to this complicated topic, but here are some causes of dizziness:

• Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo: Caused by the dislodging of crystals in your inner ear that help you sense gravity. You can correct it yourself by performing a series of head and body movements to move the crystals back in place. (I’ve had this vertigo. It fixed itself.)
• Vestibular migraine: Caused by abnormal electrical activity in the brain pathways that manage balance and pain. It can be brought on by stress, poor sleep, hormonal shifts, weather changes, and certain foods like aged cheese or red wine.
• Meunier's disease: A chronic inner ear disorder that causes recurring episodes of severe dizziness, ringing in the ears, fluctuating hearing loss, and a feeling of pressure or fullness in the ear. The root cause is unknown.
• Vascular vertigo: Caused by reduced blood flow or vascular problems in the brain, often linked to strokes or vertebral artery problems.
• Vestibular neuritis: Caused by an infection that inflames the main nerve of the inner ear.
• Other: Panic attacks, low blood pressure, dehydration, medication side effects and probably more.

These possibilities are positively dizzying!   

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.