by Mike Critelli, 

At MakeUsWell, we strive to educate users on how to improve their ability to self-manage their health and more intelligently partner with health professionals. We emphasize partnering with knowledgeable professionals, not replacing them.

Artificial intelligence can help us manage our health, when we assess food additives, over-the-counter medications, supplements, and adverse interactions among them. We inevitably have to address how to evaluate the underlying research. 

Identifying peer-reviewed research from authoritative sources in reputable journals is not enough. Research can fail at several levels—even with the elaborate peer review processes. 

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by Mike Critelli, 

Today, we are discussing one big health management issue. As consumers of foods, beverages, over-the-counter medications, and a wide range of supplements, how can AI aid in the process of ensuring that we are putting the right things into our bodies at the right time and in the right ways?  

The first priority is to make sure that, whether we are using human intelligence, AI, or a combination of both, we are using authoritative sources. Any AI platform focused on health-related advice also has to be based firmly on authoritative, unassailable sources. Uncontrolled use of, or faith in, AI can easily lead users to sources with credible, but wrong or unsupported, information. Researchers are held to a high standard in peer-reviewed articles. AI’s output must draw on the same sources and be held to the same standards as humans.

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by Mike Critelli, 

Over the past month, the MakeUsWell Network has welcomed Dr. Garry Welch and Colleen McGuire, a married couple who have formed a company called Silver Fern Healthcare. Silver Fern’s mission is to use the best available evidence to identify the psychological and sociological factors that prevent patients from effectively managing their chronic diseases.

They have particularly focused more recently in addressing the root cause of many chronic diseases, the obesity crisis. Obesity not only contributes to chronic diseases, but, as research has demonstrated, it made those with the SARS Cov-2 virus more likely to be hospitalized or die. The inflammation caused by obesity has also been linked to cancer by the CDC because of the faster cell growth required to compensate for insulin resistance.

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by Mike Critelli, 

Recently, I was honored to meet an exceptionally inspirational person, Jennifer Dickenson. Jennifer is part of a very select group, individuals who have defied the odds and survived a stage 4 metastatic cancer. In 2011, she was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a brain cancer that few people survive for one year and almost none survive five years. She wrote a book that is both inspirational and broadly insightful about what she believes accounts for her success.

She refused to accept the medical consensus that she would die and should “put her affairs in order.” Her logic was simple: if even a few people survive a stage 4 cancer, she wanted to try as much as possible what might work to give her a chance to be an outlier as a long-term survivor. We invited her to join the MakeUsWell Network and give all of you the opportunity to get to know her better. You may be inspired to buy her book, "the Case For Hope," available on Amazon.com.

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by Mike Critelli, 

This article embarks on an exploration of the intricate relationship between leadership, the COVID-19 crisis, and the burgeoning influence of AI 

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the emergence of AI, it's evident that our traditional leadership approaches have fallen short. 

Over the past four years, governmental responses to the pandemic have often exacerbated the crisis rather than mitigating it. Similarly, in grappling with the potential impacts of AI, we risk repeating the same mistakes due to outdated leadership behaviors.

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