Meet Gil: Scientist on Aging Mission

Speaker 1 0:02

I'm Alan Brown . I'm .

Speaker 2 0:03

Justin Politi .

Speaker 1 0:04

And we're here live at Health . We're here with the Reverse Mullet Healthcare Podcast and we have our special guest , Gil , that I'm super excited to have him on the podcast . So tell us about why am I excited to meet what you're up to ?

Speaker 3 0:19

So I'm a scientist in background , born and raised in Israel , phd in biology . I always wanted to stop the clock . I always wanted to stop the clock . I always wanted to help humans to live better , longer , and that's why I decided to move to the US , spent five years at MIT at the best lab that studied aging , and during that time , started to be exposed to the biotech pharma environment of Kendall Square , which is , I'm sure , the place I used to work there , yeah , which is , I'm sure , the telephone .

Speaker 3 0:41

I used to work there , yeah , and moved to the industry , worked there for a couple of years and developed a company that is trying to help humans to live better longer based on what happens inside the body .

Speaker 3 0:54

So what we do ? We actually look at blood biomarkers , dna data from fitness tracker . We just added a food recognition that you can scan your food and know exactly what you ate for a week , and based on that , we are using AI , expert system and other to provide a very refined laser focus recommendation . What are the interventions that you need to do in order to allow you to live better longer , and that includes food supplement , exercise and lifestyle changes . What is cool about that is that we are doing it for more than a decade and we have more than 100,000 users that have done it , and we have a big data that show that a correlation is still a correlation because we haven't done

Inside Tracker's Behavioral Nudging Approach

Speaker 3 1:34

a proper clinical trial , but it showed that , uh , our users , when they tested and then follow our recommendation , tested again , improve a lot of those blood biomarkers from baseline to follow-up , so that's very exciting . I think that's very relevant for your audience , because it might be a time for healthcare systems to start using personalized recommendations .

Speaker 1 1:54

Yeah , so do you think it's interesting ? Because , do you think that , like , I'm really intrigued by behavioral nudging ? It's interesting because do you think that , like , I'm really intrigued by behavioral nudging and I think , when you give people the right amount of information , like , I'm a big fan of my aura , right , tom Hale knows , right , I'm always pinging and I love that . They you know their recent acquisition and it's very clear that they look to be much bigger than just a sleep organization . You know a sleep company . But I look at InsideTr , inside tracker , and I think is there a behavioral nudging components of that ? Because , your point right , they , when people have the information that they need , they feel empowered to make change and that even that's enough yeah , no , it's .

Speaker 3 2:29

It's a great question and actually I uh , I'm thinking about it a lot and we started with blood , so I see blood as a mountain , because you receive , as you said , a lot of information . Some of it is very concerning for you , so you get pissed On some of it . You get excited .

Speaker 3 2:44

But , it makes a lot of emotion . And then , if you think about it , on average , our users are getting blood tests every 270 days , so you have a peak and then you have a valley of 270 days and another peak . So we try to allow the user to have a few small hills between the peaks to allow them to receive some meaningful recommendation . So the data from Oreming , for example , is a great example for that , or Apple Watch or whatever you have . We integrate with all of that because we can find that you haven't had a good night's sleep , so we'll provide for you a recommendation specific for that . But it's still connected for the background of what blood biomarkers are not optimized I got you , so we can tell you to drink this drink or to eat this food , or to do the exercise at the right time and so on . So that's one way to have a basically heal between of the mountains . Another example is what we had right now is the food recognition , so you can scan your food for a week and then we are telling you which macro micronutrient you are not consuming enough or consuming too much . Or also we can we develop like a gunshot that show you when you ate , when you exercise , when you slept , when you supplemented . And then we can start looking at timing

User Engagement and Health Outcomes

Speaker 3 3:54

and telling , hey , you ate too close to your sleep . No doubt that's the reason that you are not sleeping well . Or you haven't ate enough protein following your exercise , yeah . Or your intermittent fasting wasn't long enough , or so on . So we are providing that value for the user .

Speaker 3 4:13

And another thing that we have is what we call a pro tip . So , for example , we went for an exercise . A few minutes after that we are telling you , hey , congrats , you came back from exercise . Few minutes after that , we are telling you hey , congrats , you came back from exercise . Now you need to eat this amount of protein , this amount of carb and drink this amount of liquid in order to replenish . So that's another example .

Speaker 3 4:31

And the last one that we are going to release soon is a HealthPen Habits Score . So every week , you will receive basically a report that shows you what have you done well and what you haven't done well , mainly from the fitness tracker , but also from questions that we are asking you , and that's connected in a way to your longevity , because we have another solution that's called inner age , that we calculate your biological age . So this one will come tell you hey , you haven't walked enough steps and there is a correlation between step and longevity . Yep , or you haven't slept enough , and that's also my inner longevity .

Speaker 3 5:04

So the combination of all of those hills , with the mountain of the blood and the huge mountain of DNA , allow the user to be engaged more and we see that there is a correlation . As I told you pre-recording , we submitted a paper for publication with 20,000 users that tested baseline and follow-up and a few follow-up more than that , and we have a subpopulation , for example , that started with high LDL cholesterol that from the baseline to follow-up they decreased significantly , continued to be low . For the third , fourth and fifth and the sixth one , they even decreased it more .

Speaker 1 5:39

And that's without Sounds like a true patient engagement .

Speaker 2 5:41

I know Patient engagement tool and I have to say like so .

Speaker 1 5:43

so Josh and I are both like when can we do inside tracker Right ? I like I've been it's been something actually I have . I have . I have talked many times about doing it , but it's , this is like . I love that . Like we were just talking to somebody earlier who said yeah , my husband went great shape , amazing athlete , but come to find out cardiovascularly he wasn't healthy , right .

Speaker 1 6:03

Went to the cardiologist and they were like this is horrific . You know you're going to die whatever and she's on the nutrition side of the world , right A nutritional scientist , and so she was like well , it's food and the doctor's like no , no , it's a dire thing or whatever , and I love that . You've got users that are engaging . You're giving them the information they need . They're engaging , they're doing it and they're not going out by themselves .

Speaker 2 6:24

How long do they spend on average in the application ? Because it sounds like you could really be super engaged .

Speaker 3 6:31

Yeah , so again , in the peak they can spend hours of time to understand and realize , and then in the hills it can be only one minute . You receive a notification . Hey , you haven't slept well . Drink this cherry juice so it can be one minute , half a minute a day or even half a minute a week , so we are not sending a notification if we don't have what to say .

Speaker 1 6:52

Yeah , this notification should be engaged with it a little bit , like they have to be . You have to be getting information yeah , I at least connect your fitness tracker which is unbiased yeah , yeah , very , very interesting .

Speaker 2 7:03

So we always ask guests this what do you think can affect real change

Wearables: Frequency vs. Value Debate

Speaker 2 7:07

in healthcare ?

Speaker 3 7:07

I think that the real change in healthcare , in my opinion , should come from the consumer , or from the you call it patient . So I think that a patient should come to their clinician physician and tell them hey , we want to use data , we want you to use wearable data , we want you to look at my wearable data , we want you to know nutrition Wearable wearable See I win .

Speaker 2 7:30

She's converted me on wearables .

Speaker 1 7:32

They used to make so much fun of me . They're like Ellen and her wearables .

Speaker 3 7:36

No , but wearables . If you look at blood , blood is a liquid gold and then you look at the wearable , the value of the wearable data is much lower but the frequency is much higher . So you cannot do triglycerides every day . You can have your resting heart rate every day . You can have your VO2 max . You can have your sleep every day . So it's the frequency versus the value . So I agree with everyone the value is lower but because you have the frequency it can give you some estimate to understand what happened with the real blood biomarker .

Speaker 2 8:06

So that's why I like it . So you mentioned VO2max , so do you have an application ? Do you have a suggestion for like VO2max exercises ?

Speaker 3 8:14

Of course , of course . Yeah , you should do a high intensity interval training , more aerobic . That's my every week , yeah .

Speaker 2 8:21

Every day Sleep better .

Speaker 3 8:23

So , yeah , absolutely . We have thousands of recommendations for our users . So , if you are going back to , you asked me , what will convert the clinician ? So I think that the patient should do that , but also the clinician should be more open-minded . For example , an average clinician gets trained around 20 hours in nutrition .

Speaker 2 8:44

And that's nothing . What is 20 hours ? That's a theme we've been continuing in here .

Speaker 3 8:47

Reading a book is the 20 hours , yeah , yeah . So I think that something about the training of the clinician , I think that also the perception about a dietician is not as good as it should be . They are doing a great job . So I think that there are a lot of things to change and definitely the problem is the system . I'm sure that

Transforming Healthcare Through Prevention

Speaker 3 9:07

you know the hotel and gym model Basically a healthcare system like to fill the hospital like a hotel and fill the machine like a gym , so the MRI should be full all the time Instead of coming and saying , no , I don't want to go home and go to the gym , yeah Well we don't have .

Speaker 1 9:22

I'll say two things to that . First , I'll go back to your point about training for physicians . So we've become really , really big advocates of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine , because to us We'll be there next week .

Speaker 1 9:33

Right , we'll be there next week at their hovers , but we think that's like a fantastic bridge tool to allow traditional provider organizations in the American healthcare system to say , okay , well , we need our doctors to understand the six pillars you know , sleep , all the things that your tracker you know is monitoring , right , Embracing a care model around that . And then that leads me to my second point , which is we need like we were talking about before we started is we have sick care ? I mean , this hall is sick care , right , and we walked by a hospital bed which is a little disturbing to me . I'm not going to lie , we don't have health care , we don't . We have all these different point solutions , right , but imagine we bring these together to your point and somebody comes in and says I don't want cardiometabolic syndrome anymore . You can't figure out how to change that right now , but we need to have an alternative for that person .

Speaker 2 10:23

I don't want to just be treated , I actually want to right , and I feel like your tool is almost a tool for health literacy to a certain extent , because there's a lot of that's a really good point . It's just something that so many people are lacking . If you have something that you can engage in , that you know you're learning as you go right , it gets overwhelming to people when they're trying to improve . You know their current state , so you know .

Speaker 3 10:41

Yeah , also , the disease are not starting at the age of 60 or 50 . Oh no , I know . So if you have cardiovascular issues , if you will test your LDL cholesterol or APOB early and will take the statin or change your behavior , you have a better chance not to have a cardiovascular disease . The same way is if you will measure your insulin early and will see that it's spiked too much , you might be able to manage it by nutrition and not injecting insulin .

Speaker 3 11:09

So there are so many things that we can do using prevention , but there is no motivation for the healthcare system to do it right now , and I think that it's a mindset .

Speaker 1 11:18

And hence why we're all about value-based care and outcome-based care .

Speaker 2 11:20

It just has to be a movie . It has to be a movie , yeah .