Medical Food – Does it make and keep us healthy?

What was once used exclusively to treat the seriously ill is now also aimed at healthy people: medical food. Dietary supplements and fortified foods for a healthy lifestyle?The sense and benefits are controversial – the use of artificial intelligence (AI) provides new answers and impulses for shaping individual lifestyle.

From Clinical Nutrition to Superfood

The term “medical food” comes from clinical nutritional medicine, which originally focused on the treatment of people with severe cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Today, medical food stands for all activities and products that serve to maintain individual and collective health and prevent or inhibit the development of both mild and severe diseases.

Healthy or just good for business?

Health-related, physiologically compatible nutrition has been the subject of controversial discussions among scientists and the public since the late 19th century. In the meantime, bio certifications are just as much at odds with health, marketing and ethics as vegan diets or isotonic drinks for competitive athletes. Controversial, albeit widespread, are diets based on particular fruits and vegetables with the promise of sustainable well-being.

The link to clinical nutrition

New findings in nutritional science are constantly influencing not only the production and preparation of food, but also our eating habits. Canola oil, for example: Once a lubricant, it is now one of the most physiologically valuable edible oils thanks to its high content of omega-3 fatty acids. With similar values, salmon also contributes to lowering cholesterol levels. But when do we need fortified foods or dietary supplements? The latter are intended to cover a deficiency of trace elements or hormones, sometimes suspected, sometimes medically diagnosed, caused by acute or chronic metabolic disorders. This is the link to clinical nutrition.

The health navigator on your wrist

How do we recognize the effect of our diet? Thanks to AI, our “Smart Assistant” knows our physiological data, preferences, dislikes and allergies. Based on this data, it can show us how to alternatively meet our macro- and micronutrient needs. Together with data about our physical demands, it suggests menus tailored to our needs and also provides the shopping list for the ingredients missing from our “smart refrigerator. In the event of a calculated potassium deficiency, for example, this list will include bananas – and, if necessary, potassium-containing seasonings or dietary supplements.

The living world of the future

The assistant determines our physiological values without surgical intervention and prepares a dynamic health report. Health becomes a lifestyle, including self-diagnosis and self-medication coordinated with the networked family doctor. We then drink the celery juice for the pleasure of it, and the assistant suggests what we could use to absorb fiber lost during pressing. He also advises us how long we should go for a walk so that after a nutritious dessert we don’t ruin the successes of the last diet with the yo-yo effect.

As futurologists, moderning is not only concerned with the new understanding of health as an important value. The use of AI and the opportunities and dangers it creates are also topics we address in our future scenarios.