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James_Miller comments on We have the technology required to build 3D body scanners for consumer prices - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (13)
My understanding of the medical value of body scanners comes from watching the TV show House. Given that, wouldn't having lots and lots of these scanners massively increase medical costs by creating many false positives?
I think that many physiotherapists could do a better job if they would have body scanners.
The BMI is a horrible metric and having cheap body scanners would move us past the BMI and provide us with better targets for weight management.
In many cases I wouldn't need to go to the doctor if a good body scanner can tell me what's up with me. If the scanner can tell me whether my teeth are alright, I don't have to go to the dentist.
If I can get a body scan for mammogram from a person who isn't a breast surgery salesman as in the status quo, a false positive is also less likely to get me to do risky treatment.
We have had cheap bathroom scales measuring body fat percentages (not terribly accurately, but still better than guessing from the BMI) for a while; if those didn't "move us past the BMI", why do you think a device two orders of magnitude more expensive would?
Cheap scales don't measure body fat uniformly. They ignore arm composition. For the purposes of standarization they give different answers than the expensive devices used in clinical studies.
Fitness studies also measure more than body fat. They measure the circumference of various body regions. I don't think a measurement that doesn't take into account the shape of a body produce a good answer.
Most medical devices that set standards aren't very cheap. Very cheap devices give nobody an incentive to run the studies