Newsletter
The Secret to Better (Mental) Healthcare2025-06-23
“It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.”
—William Osler
Most diagnostic tests and treatments in medicine are based on large populational studies, where cross-sectional levels of laboratory or clinical measures or dosages used are determined and then embodied into guidelines for clinicians. Based on an N of many.
In reality, medicine is practiced and has to work at the level of individuals, not populations. Longitudinal changes in a measure in an individual over time, compared to the previous baseline, in the context of the other things going on with the person, are what really matter. Based on an N of 1.
It follows that better healthcare can be achieved by a shift from populational guidelines to personalized medicine, where people are followed longitudinally over time, with their changes in laboratory tests and clinical measures integrated in the context of what else is happening in their body, lives, and minds. Concierge medicine is already practiced that way.
We have enabled that personalized approach for mental health with our advanced blood biomarker tests, which can be repeated periodically to track improvements, as well as with our digital screen for life events, and an app for tracking what is going on in their minds (mindxsciences.com).