Angelika Sharma at home in Livingston, N.J., with her 3-year-old daughter Annika. Sharma turned to a medical start-up to learn the cause of her daughter's food allergies. by Elizabeth Dwoskin, Daniel Gilbert, and Tatum Hunter, Washington PostAngelika Sharma was desperate. An array of basic first foods — from bananas to sweet potatoes — caused her 6-month old Annika to vomit uncontrollably, so many times in one night that she landed in the hospital for dehydration.
A public eager for answers is swarming this parallel medical ecosystem. The home diagnostics market generates $5 billion annually and is expected to nearly double by 2032, according to the market research firm Precedence Research.
Patients said the testing industry offers a rare path to relief, but many see a dangerous Wild West of medical information. Some professional societies have cautioned against taking certain home tests. The American Gastroenterological Association says data on the health benefit of biome tests is “lacking.” The American Diabetes Association says that no off-the-shelf glucose tests for measuring signs of diabetes meet “nationally standardized criteria for accuracy.”
Companies see a major opportunity in the sea change of health habits triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, said health-tech investor Christina Farr. As millions of Americans swabbed their own nostrils and Zoomed with doctors for the first time, mistrust in scientific authorities ballooned. Narang said she understands that many who feel neglected by the medical system are driven to take matters into their own hands. But the solution often makes the problems worse, spawning a “vicious cycle” of unnecessary testing, spending, and anxiety — adding to burdens on patients and caretakers.An exploding online market fueled by distrust
“The number one thing I hear from other women is that they’re tired of being gaslit by doctors,” Jung said. But social media platforms are also becoming battlegrounds where doctors raise alarms about the testing boom. “Peddling of health-care wares directly to patients pretty tough for them to discern the difference between a legitimate test or not,” said Bob Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco.
Health Health Latest News, Health Health Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: washingtonpost - 🏆 95. / 72 Read more »
Source: adndotcom - 🏆 293. / 63 Read more »