Health Predictions 2026

Readers, as I look back on 2025 and my January health predictions, I see that I was spot on this year. https://www.tonibrayermd.com/post/health-predictions-2025

A few items occurred with even more force than I predicted. (The devastating effects of RFKjr.) Some just quietly manifested (AI now everywhere).

It's time for 2026 and here are my crystal ball hot topics to watch for:

1. Chat Bots for Health and Mental Health - It's here. Parents, your kids are already interacting with AI and we've heard about the scary reports of chat bots facilitating suicide in vulnerable young people. With no external regulation (The big beautiful awful Trump Bill prohibits regulation on AI.) we depend upon the companies themselves to put in guardrails to protect kids. However, I've seem some chats that are truly compassionate with good, sound advice, especially for anxiety. The answer for 2026 is to understand them, avoid isolation with AI "friends", educate everyone, especially kids, on how to detect that this a machine only without true compassion or feelings. Let's design a curriculum and teach this in middle school. We've entered a new age and education has not caught up with the need.

OK maybe a little extreme but I think it is a scourge

1. Private Equity and Health Care - 2025 showed a surge in Private Equity (PE) investment firms buying physician practices, rural hospitals, ER groups, behavioral health, drug treatment centers, and nursing homes to the tune of more than $1 trillion. These aquisition deals generate high returns for investors but they do not build long term value or add to the needs of people. With a focus on short-term revenue generation (cutting staff, limiting service, raising prices) they don't invest in critical infrastructure. There is no real federal oversight and the opaque nature of these operations can leave a community with no OB services, no pediatric care, hospitals with dangerous staffing and abrupt closing of facilities once the profits have been scraped from the top. Unfortunately the current administration has the same mindset; acquire, downsize, extract value, prioritize short term financial gains over long-term safety and welfare. An Annals study found that PE acquisitions were associated with a 13.4% increase in mortality among medicare patients in emergency departments. Understand what is going on when you can't find a doctor or nursing home fees have risen exponentially with less staff. When you read about Private Equity acquisitions, know that it is bad for your health.

   

2. AI Personalization of Medicine - I hoped this would be more profound in 2025 and I predict it again for 2026. The ability of artificial super intelligence to go beyond the human mind makes advances in healthcare mind-boggling and exciting. Consider diagnosing an illness or cancer years before symptoms appear, when altering genes can halt the onset. Think about acellerating drug discoveries to treat alzheimers, parkinsons, ALS, cancer, infertility. We could have precise drugs that work with your individual biology so it is no longer tiral and error to find what is effective, eliminating costly human trials that take years and millions of $$ to conduct. We could predict pandemics so safeguards can be put into place and communities could be prepared. The exciting possibility of diagnosing complex symptoms faster by synchronizing vast database sets including clinical notes and lab results. Automating administration and routine tasks so doctors could focus on the humanistic aspects of care. And finally adressing aging as a disease to develop target therapies to slow or reverse the process. It's tremendously exciting for 2026.

   
   

I was correct about 2025 consumer protections (FDA, CMS, Dept of commerce, NIH, Center for Disease Control, Vaccine experts) having a terrible effect on public health and the environment we live in. I expect this to continue and I'm proud to be a part of Science and Medicine that is speaking out strongly, filing lawsuits and educating people on this fake and dangerous focus that is taking us back to the dark ages.

Chat GPT image. Love it

That's enough for now. If you have some other predictions or think I'm off base, comment below.

Watch for my next post on the simple, boring, unexciting proven ways you can be healthy in 2026.