Dr. ChatGPT
How I've been using AI to better understand & improve my health
👋Hello, my friend. This week, I want to share something that might be useful if you, like me, are trying to better understand what’s going on with your body and take a more intentional approach to your health. Recently, I’ve started using ChatGPT as a kind of medical companion—not to replace my doctor, but as a tool to help me connect dots, synthesize info, and be a more active participant in my own health journey. Today, I’m going to explain exactly how I’m doing that.
Intentional Wisdom x Peloton
Don’t forget to join the IW group on Peloton. No specific challenge this week. Just keeping an eye on the leaderboard, which is always fun. Link to join here.
👨⚕️Dr. ChatGPT
As you might remember from a recent post, I’ve been working to get to the bottom of a few symptoms that have cropped up over the past year. Annoying things like dry eyes and dry mouth, occasional lightheadedness, and periods of fatigue—especially after intense workouts. I’ve gone pretty deep down the rabbit hole: got a full bloodwork panel done via Function Health (100 biomarkers), and I’ve been working with a functional medicine doctor who’s taking a super detailed, holistic view—looking at my health history, labs, sleep, diet, stress levels, supplements, workouts, all of it. I’ve been enjoying the process and learning a lot.
But what I want to focus on here is how I’ve been using ChatGPT alongside that process—and why it’s been surprisingly helpful.
Dumping Everything In
So here’s what I’ve been doing: basically dropping everything I can think of into ChatGPT that relates to my health.
I started with the Function Health bloodwork. That gave me a large data set to work with across all the major systems in the body. I uploaded it to ChatGPT, and it gave me an instant readout and analysis. To be honest, that first readout wasn’t wildly different from what Function already provides—but that was a good baseline foundation for “Dr. Chat” to start to understand me.
From there, I started layering in more qualitative stuff: the symptoms I mentioned above, and just lots of random things I could think of that I’ve dealt with on and off over the years — occasional migraines, muscle soreness, etc. etc. Basically, stuff that is like TMI to bore almost any human with but just feeding it everything that I could think of that’s plagued me — past or present.
Then I uploaded five years’ worth of Whoop data (workouts, sleep, recovery scores, etc.). I also track a few basic daily habits like caffeine and dairy intake, if I felt stressed that day, etc. so I pulled in all of that, too.
Then I uploaded all of the supplements I’m taking right now. I didn’t even list them—I just snapped a photo of the bottles on my bathroom counter and dropped it in. I asked Dr. Chat if it was okay to take them all together (yes) and the good doctor also shared some unsolicited comments on the quality of the brands I’m using (thumbs up), and even recommended when during the day to take each one for best absorption. That part was impressive.
This wasn’t a one-time dump either. I’ve been doing it little by little. One day bloodwork. Another day symptoms. Another day my workout history. One thing I’ve appreciated about the paid version of ChatGPT (I use the $20/month plan) is that it remembers everything you tell it. So each time I come back, it has more context. And the more context it has, the smarter it gets.
What It’s Giving Back
So what happens when you feed all of this in?
First off, it gives you a pretty thoughtful sense of what might be going on. For me, it flagged some immune system markers that could point toward early signs of autoimmunity issues. It also highlighted some potential dysregulation in the autonomic nervous system—which in regular language basically means I might be spending too much time in “fight or flight” mode, and not enough time in “rest and recover” mode. That could actually help explain some of the symptoms I’ve been experiencing.
But it doesn’t stop at one theory. It offers a working hypothesis, plus a few others that could also be in play. It’s not saying “this is what you have.” It’s saying, “Here are some plausible explanations. Here’s how you might investigate further.”
That includes:
Additional tests to consider—blood, imaging, functional tests, etc.
Suggestions for types of specialists to consult
Behavioral changes to experiment with
Even a list of podcasts and other resources tailored to exactly the topics we’d been discussing.
And this part kind of blew me away: it asked if I wanted a clinical summary PDF formatted for my doctor. I said yes, and it instantly generated a really well-organized, medical-sounding summary of everything we’d discussed. I’ve shared a couple of those summaries with my functional medicine doctor (lucky her, right?) and she seemed open to it—though she may have just been humoring me. Anyhow, I couldn’t help myself if there was even a small chance that Dr. Chat had thought of something she hadn’t. I’ll let you feel out your own relationship with your doctor before you start explaining why AI is right and they’re wrong though… I could see how that could go in the wrong direction. 😬
The Pros and Cons
What I love:
It remembers everything I’ve told it.
It sees patterns that aren’t always obvious.
It’s available 24/7 for follow-up questions or new ideas.
It gives you usable output: hypotheses, next steps, questions to ask, stuff to try, resources to learn from.
The tradeoffs:
It can definitely take “Dr. Google” to a whole new level. If you’re prone to obsessing about symptoms (🙋♂️), this can feed that a bit.
You’re uploading personal health info to an AI system. There’s no guarantee that stays private forever. A risk I’m willing to take at the moment but something to keep in mind.
These tools aren’t infallible. I asked three different AI models a 7th-grade geometry problem last week and got three different answers. So yeah, grain of salt.
That said, I’ve found it to be a helpful, smart tool—especially if you’re in that in-between space of “I know something’s off, but I don’t yet know what.”
It’s not a replacement for my doctor, it’s more like a smart, trusted friend who (in this case) knows everything about my health (and health in general) and can instantly remember everything I’ve told it, and instantly make connections that might not be obvious to me.
Anyhow, that’s how I’m using it at the moment. Thought I’d share in case that’s helpful to you or someone you know who might be benefit from this sort of thing.
That’s it for this week but before you go…
🧠 Content Diet
Some things I’ve been exploring lately that tie into this health journey—plus a few things to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system (aka to chill the f out).
🔬 Nervous System + Recovery
Huberman Lab: Tools for Managing Stress & Anxiety
This episode had some great tools and tactics especially around breathwork, including the “physiological sigh” as a quick tool to shift into calm mode. Super relevant as I dive deeper into the autonomic nervous system. Watch on YouTubeDr. Lo Show: Annie Hopper on DNRS
Annie is the creator of the Dynamic Neural Retraining System, one of several brain retraining programs aimed at helping people rewire their stress and trauma responses. These methods don’t involve taking drugs and are showing results for everything from chronic illness to long COVID. Listen hereTED Talk: Ben Ahrens – “One Deep Breath”
Ben’s story is remarkable. Once a professional surfer, he was diagnosed with chronic Lyme and MS, which left him bedridden for three years before using brain retraining to get back to full health. He now runs a company called Re-Origin based on these same principles. I’m getting very interested here and may even do the program myself so watch this space. Watch hereAlso for a quick 10-min overview of what the limbic system is and how it can be trained to help with all sorts of conditions, check out this video with Ben.
😂 For the Parasympathetic Nervous System (aka to laugh)
SmartLess with Amy Poehler
Perfect listen when you just want to chill and laugh. Listen hereJury Duty (Amazon Prime)
If you haven’t watched this yet, please do. My wife and I have been rewatching it this week and I’ve been in absolute hysterics. If you’re not laughing uncontrollably at least once per week, I’m not a doctor, but I prescribe that to you now. Watch here
That’s it for this week. Hope there’s something helpful here for you.
Appreciate you reading, and I’ll see you next week.
—Greg