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Medical Predictions for the Next 25 years

We live in 21st century, and though the world may be getting crowded, science promises to make our lives easier, our health better.

Here are 9 reasons to stop worrying about the future.

You may die of Heart Break but not of Heart Disease.
By 2010, doctors hope to be able to spot faint signs of heart disease in young men and women, to deterthe disease. In addition, people with chronic athrosclerosismay benefit from genetherapy, a process in which physicians replace the gene that makes a body more likely to accumalate artery-clogging plague. This procedure is already successful in mice.

Within 25 years, we may also have otupatient surgeries that remove arterial plague, and cloned animals could provide a steady supply of valves and hearts that won't be rejected by the body.
Cancer won't be a killer.
Within 15 years, researches hope to be using extremely sensitive tests of blood, urine, and saliva to detect the slightest traces of cancer proteins. Many cancers will be diagnosed, treated, and cured years earlier than they are now.

Vaccines for liver cancer, Iymphomas, melanoma, and even prostate cancer may be developed within two decades.

By 2015, physicians will use drugs that block only the particular molecules that allow certain cancer cells to grow.

Drugs that stop cancer from forming new blood vessels are working in the lab right now. Such drugs may significantly reduce cancer deaths - and even halt advanced cancers - as early as 2010.

Gene therapy can snuff out the cancer-causing genes in prostate, colon, and pancreatic cells by introducing kamikaze genes that direct the malignant cells to die.
A stroke won't render you helpless.
By 2020, doctors will be able to put patients in hyperbaric oxygen cooling chambers and administer neuro-protective drugs that preserve brain tissue before irreversible damage occurs, and also guide precisely targeted drugs to instantaneously unclog the blocked artery. Which means the life-changing ordeal that sends people home in wheelchairs may be reduced to a fainting spell followed by four or 5 stick days.
You will remember better.
Protective drugs that guard brain tissue against Alzheimer's could be available in 15 years, and soon thereafter physicians may be able to correct the damage done by the Alzheimer's gene.
Diabetes will be easily manageable.
irst researchers hope to introduce insulin pills and inhalers within a few years. An even more radical development: Within 25 years, physicians may routinely use gene therapy to regenerate the insulin-producing pancreatic cells or force other cells to produce insulin. Pancreatic cell transplants ( much safer than substituting a new organ ) with bioengineered animal tissue are also coming, as is an artifical pancreas.
You'll never feel stiff in the morning.
Within 20 years, doctors will clone the cells that produce healthy cartilage ( called chondrocytes) and transplant them into joints. This procedure could render most arthritis sufferers pain-free.
You will never lose your hearing.
By 2020, researchers hope to have gene therapy that will regenerate cochlear-hir cells in humans. This will reverse most age - related hearing loss.
You will be able to take your teeth to your grave.
Within 15 years, dentists will fuse toothenamel crystals with lasers to make them impervious to decay producing acids from bacteria. And mouthwashes spiked with antibacterial and anti-inflammatory agents will tame even extreme cases of gum disease.
You will rise to the occasion without fail.
Within a few years, doctors hope to have drugs that promote regular nighttime erections tp keep the penis oxygenated and healthy. And by 2020, men will take a daily drug to prevent the gradual buildup of penile scar tissue. For severe situations, they will use gene therapy to regrow damaged penile muscle.

Men who need only an occasional boost will be able to choose from a variety of easy-to-use oral drugs and medicated gels.