#28 DIY Doctoring 🧶

Also: GLP-1 = GDP, misinfo battles & space sex.

Top of the morning to you. Today’s newsletter is 500 words-long, or a 2-minute read.  

Think about it 💡

🧶 DIY doctoring is on the rise & a new study pitted AI chatbots against WebMD. 1 in 4 people say they have used social media to obtain a diagnosis. Of these, 43% then consulted a healthcare professional and 82% of them hit the diagnostic jackpot. In this context, AI chatbots emerge as a promising alternative. Analyzing AI responses to common cancer queries, another study found that chatbots offer accurate and dependable supplementary medical information. While they scored well in terms of accuracy, their "understandability" and "actionability" ratings were moderate and poor respectively. So, if you're going for an online medical degree, maybe still keep your doc on speed dial.

Source: Tebra

💰 America’s obsession with weight-loss drugs is upending Denmark’s economy. Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Wegovy are doing more than just shedding pounds – they're bulking up Denmark's economy to match its own GDP. Who needs Lego and Carlsberg when you've got weight-loss pills running the financial show? Thanks to a flood of cash from across the pond, the Danish krone is now on a rollercoaster ride against the euro. But hey, at least this comes with benefits: job creation, domestic investment, nice mortgage rates... Just remember, history's cautionary tale of Nokia's reign in Finland is lurking in the shadows. Yet, for now, Novo Nordisk is strutting as Europe's silver medalist in the corporate Olympics, with projections of even fatter stacks of cash by 2027.

Youtube’s misinfo battles ⚔️

📺 YouTube has launched a significant crackdown on misleading information by removing videos promoting harmful or ineffective cancer treatments and discouraging medical treatment seeking. This move builds on YouTube's ongoing efforts to combat misinformation surrounding topics like covid-19 and vaccines. The platform's refined medical moderation guidelines will be employed in cases of high public health risk, supported by reputable health authorities' guidance, while targeting areas vulnerable to misinformation. This approach seeks to balance informed discussions with harm prevention, addressing videos suggesting unsafe treatments instead of established methods.

Neat News 🗞️

• 💡 Medtronic's endovascular artificial intelligence pilot program treated a first patient. Neat

• 💸 Thyme Care raised $60 million to help cancer patients navigate their care. Super neat. 

• 🏡 At-home wearables combined with advanced machine learning techniques effectively tracked the advancement of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Ultra neat. 

Clean Content 🧼

• 🎒The academic season is around the corner for biotech as well. Here is the distinguished lineup of Fierce Biotech's Fierce 15 cohort of 2023. 

• 🔎 He who controls the spice, controls the universe. Well, Blake Madden asks who controls the healthcare spice.  

• 🖼️ Stepping out of the canvas, bioethicists say NFTs might just give healthcare a pixelated revolution.

This is what you came for 🍑

🚀 As the final frontier becomes increasingly accessible, scientists are calling for further research into cosmic intercourse. While NASA steadfastly insists that zero g trysts have yet to take place, the rise of space tourism has fuelled speculation that we could be witnessing weightless romancing within the next decade or so. But space shenanigans come with a number of caveats. Beyond the risk of injury (head bumps specifically), researchers say that achieving space-worthy arousal could be a challenge in itself, with blood flow playing a big part in male biology and all that.

Byeeee,

🎩 Hats off to the fantastic journalists whose stories inspired the Hoagie this week. Sarah Bregel, Joseph Walker, Dominic Chopping, Sune Engel Rasmussen, Jon Porter, Nick Paul Taylor, India Rice, Annalee Armstrong, Blake Madden, Connie Lin and Brady Knox - your pens are mightier than the sword.