GOOGLE'S NEW TECHNOLOGY CAN PREDICT HEART DISEASES

The secret to predicting certain types of heart diseases may be hidden in your eyes.

Researchers from Google and its health-tech subsidiary Verily recently announced they have successfully created algorithms to predict whether someone has high blood pressure or is at any risk of a heart attack or stoke simply by scanning the person's eyes.

Google's researchers trained the algorithm with image scanning retinas from more than 280,000 patients. By reviewing this massive database, Google's algorithm trained itself to recognise the patterns that designated people at risk.

The success of this algorithm is a sign of exciting developments in healthcare on the horizon. As Google fine-tune this technology, it could one day help patients quickly and cheaply identify health risks. The algorithm still needs a lot of work, before you get too excited, it did not outperform existing medical approaches such as blood tests. The algorithm was able to pick out the patient at risk 70% of the time, which is impressive, but it is far from perfect.

The procedure also hasn't been replicated or validated to the point where it can be broadly accepted in the scientific community.

It is clear that artificial intelligence and machine learning have the potential to bring added convenience and affordability to the healthcare industry, even in areas as small as our eyes.