Reversing Diabetes with Technology: Sami Inkinen’s Journey from Tech Innovator to Healthcare Disruptor

[00:00:01] Welcome to the Chalk Talk Gym Podcast, where we explore insights into healthcare that help uncover new opportunities for growth and success. I'm your host, Jim Jordan.

[00:00:18] Welcome to Chalk Talk Gym, where we do a deep dive into business innovation in healthcare. Today, we're joined by Sami Inkidin, and he's the co-founder and CEO of VertiHealth. Sami's unique journey from a background in physics and software to founding the real estate giant Trella,

[00:00:35] to tackling the world's greatest healthcare challenges of our time, Type 2 Diabetes, has given him an unparalleled insight into solving complex problems. In this episode, Sami shares how his personal health journey has led him to co-found VertiHealth, a company on a mission to reverse Type 2 Diabetes and obesity using innovative nutrition solutions in telemedicine. You'll hear about his approach to reversing chronic disease, the power of personalized care, and how

[00:01:05] healthcare is reshaping healthcare delivery. Sami, tell me in the audience a little bit more about yourself.

[00:01:11] Yeah, thanks for having me here, James. This is Sami Inkidin, CEO and co-founder of VertiHealth, and we are on a mission to solve what I think the biggest health epidemic of our generation, and that is Type 2 Diabetes and Obesity.

[00:01:23] But in terms of brief background, I actually come from totally outside of healthcare. Grew up in Finland on a farm, studied physics, started my career in a nuclear power plant. So I didn't learn much, did not learn much healthcare in a nuclear power plant.

[00:01:37] But they got into computers and software early, started a software company in Europe before coming to America. So I'd say the tool in my back pocket has not been a needle, it's been software. So software has been a tool professionally for me.

[00:01:52] And then came to America in 2003 by way of Stanford, where I went to my second grad school and been here ever since. So about 21 years in America. And prior to founding VertiHealth, I co-founded a company called Trulia, which went public 2012 and then merged with Zillow.

[00:02:09] Trulia, for those listeners who don't know, is an online real estate marketplace. So again, that's an example of using software to solve something for consumers. And now running VertiHealth, which is obviously a healthcare company, is very different, but software is still playing.

[00:02:26] Actually, that's a little bit of background.

[00:02:27] Yeah, there's two themes I feel here. The first being is a bit of my background. I've been an engineering manager before and a plant manager. And I've always found that people with a physics background and a computer background, they have systems thinking, right? So I think that brings an approach to the problem.

[00:02:44] And then I'm also curious, from your real estate experience, that's a very consumer-oriented business. And I can't help by thinking there's a hint of both of these systems and this knowledge of consumer marketing that is tied into your current vision. So share with us about how you started this particular part of your journey with diabetes and healthcare.

[00:03:06] Yeah, and sure, absolutely. Hopefully the physics decree and trying to understand how to solve problems has been helpful. And of course, the consumer focus, we truly have.

[00:03:16] But yeah, how VertiHealth came about, quite honestly, first of all, it was an accident for me. If you had asked me, let's say 2011, 2012, how about solving obesity and diabetes? There's a billion people suffering globally and tens of millions, now 100 million plus in America suffering from type 2 diabetes.

[00:03:34] So obesity. I would have probably rolled my eyes and left you saying, are you kidding me? These are lifestyle diseases. So people end up there by choice because you have a choice of what you put into your mouth and what you eat in particular.

[00:03:48] So I probably would have rolled my eyes at the time. And unfortunately, I should say, fortunately, I had to eat a lot of humble pie because here's what happened to me.

[00:03:57] Throughout those years, I was building Trulia. I was a high-performing endurance athlete and did triathlons, did the Hawaii Ironman seven times and ended up even winning the world championships in my age group.

[00:04:09] So very fit. And guess what? Soon after that, I discovered that I had prediabetes and I was on my way to type 2 diabetes myself.

[00:04:18] And quite frankly, I was pissed and also embarrassed because I always thought, wait a second, it's the people in the middle of America and many places globally who maybe have to suffer from type 2 diabetes.

[00:04:32] It's not me. It's definitely not me. But here I was clearly metabolically unhealthy.

[00:04:38] And this kind of led me to Virta Health and the steps that happened was, number one, I met my scientific co-founder, Dr. Stephen Finney, who had researched carbohydrate metabolism and metabolism in general, Stanford MD, PhD from MIT, nutritional and biochemistry, real expert in the field.

[00:04:57] And I learned two things through him. Number one, obesity and diabetes is not a personal choice.

[00:05:03] So obviously I was completely wrong. They are diseases.

[00:05:07] But number two, which probably is the most or hardest for people to believe and was for me initially, is that these are reversible conditions nutritionally.

[00:05:19] If you know how to manipulate the nutrition so that you can eliminate hunger and cravings,

[00:05:26] the kind of grinding your teeth, eat, lift, exercise more like most diet programs have been for the last 40 years, obviously does not work.

[00:05:35] But I learned from Dr. Finney that there's a way to manipulate nutrition and basically eliminate hunger and cravings.

[00:05:41] And I thought, wait a second, this scientist is onto something.

[00:05:46] How can we use technology, in this case, telemedicine, to make this treatment, which fundamentally is nutrition-based and take you to the masses and fundamentally show the world that type 2 diabetes is reversible, obesity is reversible,

[00:06:00] and we can get rid of those diseases rather than just prescribe medications to treat symptoms.

[00:06:06] So anyways, this is a long-winded way of saying this is how I came from quasi-retirement and a consumer-focused tech company truly to Virta Health.

[00:06:16] And we've co-founded the company in 2014, really got going in 2015.

[00:06:21] And here we are almost a decade later.

[00:06:23] And yeah, we're reversing diabetes in all 50 states, hundreds of thousands of people every day, and it's happening.

[00:06:29] Because this is an audio podcast, people can't see how healthy and buff you are.

[00:06:33] And you shared that you had just completed a lot of athletic things.

[00:06:37] So you clearly weren't overweight when you were in this pre-diabetes thing.

[00:06:42] What do you think, in retrospect now that you've learned of your process and your system,

[00:06:46] what was the main cause that would have someone that you would look at physically and say, boy, I wish I could look like that?

[00:06:53] Yes, thank you. Thank you very much.

[00:06:55] First of all, N equals 1 makes no science.

[00:06:58] And so N equals 1, it's tough to say what exactly happened.

[00:07:02] But I would say the following.

[00:07:04] Number one, given the fact that more than 60% of American adults now have either pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes,

[00:07:14] or it's more than half, and if you add obesity and overweight, you're looking at sort of 70% plus.

[00:07:20] Given more than 70% plus of American adults are suffering from more or less the same thing I was suffering,

[00:07:26] clearly it's not a rare genetic disorder.

[00:07:29] I think we can all agree that.

[00:07:30] It's not, surely I may have had some predisposition, but clearly it is not something that I was one out of a million unlucky.

[00:07:38] So that's one thing I would say.

[00:07:39] And then the second thing I would say, which again, N equals 1 doesn't make a proof,

[00:07:44] but I am absolutely convinced that it all came down to nutrition.

[00:07:49] While I was out exercising the calories, keeping myself lean,

[00:07:55] because you have to be lean as an endurance athlete to perform,

[00:07:57] I was basically marinating my body and brain in excess sugar and carbohydrates and glucose,

[00:08:04] more or less 24-7.

[00:08:06] And I was a child of 1980s, 1990s, and fatty is bad, cholesterol is bad.

[00:08:12] And it's cereals, granola bars, jamber juice, soda, sports drinks, little snacks during the day.

[00:08:20] So basically six, seven times a day, I was just slurping sugar and carbohydrates.

[00:08:24] And when you do that for 15, 20 years, I don't care how much you exercise.

[00:08:29] That's what I would say.

[00:08:30] But again, just to be humble here, N equals 1 doesn't make science,

[00:08:33] but I think it's a pretty solid case.

[00:08:35] So share with the audience, where does your organization fit within the continuum of healthcare?

[00:08:40] Because we think of the endocrinologist and we think of the diabetic training programs

[00:08:44] and the direct shipment of insulin, the direct shipment of pills.

[00:08:48] Where does this program fit and who pays for it?

[00:08:52] Yeah, good question.

[00:08:54] First of all, we are a provider.

[00:08:56] So we're a telemedicine company.

[00:08:57] When you become our patient, we assign you a Virta coach and a Virta provider

[00:09:01] who provides supervision and takes care of your safety and supports you and individualizes the treatments.

[00:09:08] We are a provider.

[00:09:10] And the treatment itself is nutrition-paced, or I would say lifestyle treatment,

[00:09:15] meaning if we prescribe medications, it's only because it happens to be necessary,

[00:09:20] but mostly we are in the business of deprescribing medications.

[00:09:23] We can deprescribe medications because we can nutritionally bring your blood sugar down

[00:09:28] and medications become unnecessary.

[00:09:31] So that's primarily the role of the Virta providers.

[00:09:34] And given we are a provider, you can come to us directly.

[00:09:38] So literally our clinic's front door is VirtaHealth.com.

[00:09:41] Anyone can come there directly.

[00:09:44] And if the treatment is not covered, like it is for most by your employer or health plan or government,

[00:09:49] if it's not covered, you can pay out of pocket.

[00:09:52] But to answer your question, more than 500 or so organizations, to be specific now in America,

[00:09:58] including self-insured employers like UPS, United Airlines, Papa John's, all kinds of companies

[00:10:04] to help plans like Blue City of California, Humana, multiple Native American tribes.

[00:10:09] We also work with the Veterans Administration.

[00:10:12] They work with us with VirtaHealth as a paying client, and they cover the treatment,

[00:10:17] the Virta treatment to individuals so that you as a patient,

[00:10:20] you get absolutely completely free access to Virta.

[00:10:24] So most people get free access.

[00:10:25] But if for some reason we don't yet work with your payer, health plan or your employer,

[00:10:30] then you can also pay out of pocket.

[00:10:33] And in terms of how do we fit into the rest of the ecosystem,

[00:10:36] given we are a provider, you don't necessarily need a referral.

[00:10:40] Obviously, we try to communicate closely with your PCP,

[00:10:42] but you can just come to us directly and enroll as a patient.

[00:10:45] And then lastly, I would say, sometimes people ask,

[00:10:48] how do the primary care providers, what do they think about you?

[00:10:52] Are you stepping on their toes?

[00:10:53] Are you trying to be the primary care provider?

[00:10:55] The answer is absolutely not.

[00:10:56] In 99.9% of the cases, we've become the best friend for the primary care provider

[00:11:01] because one, we don't take any business out of them.

[00:11:04] Two, we do what they can't do and they don't have tools for.

[00:11:08] So we can actually help their patient reverse diabetes, lose weight, get rid of medication.

[00:11:13] So when they go back to their primary care provider, say once a quarter,

[00:11:17] it's usually hugs and laughs and cries because the primary care provider goes,

[00:11:21] wait a second, I've never seen this before.

[00:11:24] You lost 50 pounds, your Plotter Grey 1C came from 10% to below the diabetes limit,

[00:11:29] say 6.1, you're off of insulin.

[00:11:31] I've never seen this before.

[00:11:32] This is incredible.

[00:11:33] Whatever you're doing, keep doing it.

[00:11:34] And then thirdly, those primary care providers who are on value-based contracts

[00:11:39] with their health plans, we often make the money.

[00:11:41] Why?

[00:11:42] Because they have a measurable program.

[00:11:44] Health outcomes improve.

[00:11:45] So we are the partner for the primary care provider without giving them any extra work

[00:11:49] or taking business or money away from their pocket.

[00:11:53] And I just want to add to that the primary care historically has relied upon the endocrinologist,

[00:11:58] of which there's a huge shortage of endocrinologists.

[00:12:01] Yeah.

[00:12:01] So my primary care physician friends struggle with the early type 2 diabetes,

[00:12:07] getting enough appointments and educations with the endocrinologist,

[00:12:10] because I prioritize the, we used to call them the train wrecks, right?

[00:12:13] The people that are in a worse situation.

[00:12:15] That's incredibly helpful.

[00:12:16] And as it relates to just sharing with the audience, your value-based care,

[00:12:20] when healthcare reform came, there was documentation that provided bonuses

[00:12:25] to make sure the physicians see a complete cycle.

[00:12:28] So if I send you to a cardiologist, did you get there and did you do something?

[00:12:33] And same thing with all these other pieces.

[00:12:35] So part of the endocrinologist shortage is also hampering their ability to get that value-based

[00:12:40] because they may not always get the, particularly in rural settings, have enough people.

[00:12:45] So when you deliver this model, do I have an app on my phone

[00:12:48] or how do you work through that telemedicine model?

[00:12:51] I'm curious.

[00:12:52] Yeah.

[00:12:52] Yes, you do.

[00:12:53] Yes.

[00:12:54] Quite remarkably, we never lay our hand on our patients physically.

[00:12:59] So everything we do is literally bits, ones and zeros flowing between two screens.

[00:13:05] And on the patient side, it is an app or you can obviously use on a computer or tablet or mobile phone.

[00:13:12] So it is an app.

[00:13:13] We also send you remote monitoring tools because we have to and want to get certain biomarkers,

[00:13:19] blood glucose, blood ketones, blood pressure if you have hypertension or get your weight.

[00:13:24] So we get a number of biomarkers multiple times a day,

[00:13:28] which is not just necessary for the safety of our care so we can deprescribe medications

[00:13:34] and know if anything's going on.

[00:13:35] But it's also that that objective data allows us to individualize the treatment in a very precise way.

[00:13:43] And there's a fashionable term, precision nutrition.

[00:13:46] We don't like fancy words, but that's basically what we do.

[00:13:49] And yeah, so it's an app and remote monitoring tools that allow us then to take care of you

[00:13:54] and individualize the care.

[00:13:55] And then on our side, our providers and coaches, and by the way, providers are both internists

[00:14:01] and we have endocrinologist on staff as well.

[00:14:04] And so we always try to have the right kind of a provider and expertise for the patient,

[00:14:08] whatever they need.

[00:14:09] On our side, it's mostly asynchronous communication.

[00:14:13] We could call it chatting.

[00:14:15] Sometimes synchronous, a bit agnostic to how we communicate,

[00:14:18] but mostly it's asynchronous through the app.

[00:14:21] And then of course, a lot of the responses and real-time responses are purely automated.

[00:14:26] Since we have massive amount of content and we can use AI in a responsible way to help the patient,

[00:14:32] but there's always a physician in the lobe if there's a clinical decision.

[00:14:35] That's how it works.

[00:14:36] And then it's a longitudinal relationship.

[00:14:38] This will give you one sense of how this is a very new type of medicine.

[00:14:42] And we call it continuous remote care.

[00:14:44] But oftentimes, if you have a chronic disease, yeah, you see your provider quite often,

[00:14:48] but that's four times a year.

[00:14:50] In our care, you interface with our provider and or coach oftentimes four times per day,

[00:14:56] especially initially.

[00:14:57] And we can do it cost-effectively because, again, it's digital.

[00:15:00] And so it's a totally different type of way of taking care of patients,

[00:15:04] not just the science and using nutrition to reverse the disease,

[00:15:08] but the way we deliver care.

[00:15:09] And we can talk about how do you get paid for that?

[00:15:12] Because obviously, if people serve this medicine,

[00:15:14] thank God we couldn't even use it because they wanted billing codes for what we do.

[00:15:18] So we actually evaluate-based provider ourselves, too.

[00:15:21] It seems to me that most of the actual data is in our watches and I have a blood pressure

[00:15:27] quadroquart Q-A-R-D-I-O and all these things that go to my phone,

[00:15:31] but they never make it to my physician.

[00:15:33] You seem to be another way to enter that information into the healthcare stream, too,

[00:15:37] right?

[00:15:37] Because being a provider, you actually can attach to an electronic health record.

[00:15:42] Yeah.

[00:15:42] First, I should say, I'm going to use an analogy here,

[00:15:44] which I'm not trying to imply that Virta wants to be Uber,

[00:15:48] but I'll use an analogy here to answer your question.

[00:15:51] Imagine if Uber had started in the early days and trying to sell their software and technology

[00:15:57] to yellow cab taxi companies in New York.

[00:16:00] I'm sure we can guess the response would have been like,

[00:16:02] you're ridiculous.

[00:16:03] Like, we don't need that.

[00:16:04] We don't use that.

[00:16:05] That's not how we get paid.

[00:16:06] That's not how we drive.

[00:16:07] We don't want to get random people calling us.

[00:16:09] We just want to see someone waving a hand by the...

[00:16:12] It would have gone nowhere.

[00:16:13] And so what Uber had to do was he'll say, okay, we have to build,

[00:16:16] quote unquote, full stack from ground up.

[00:16:18] We're going to have our own drivers.

[00:16:20] We're going to have our own software.

[00:16:21] We're just going to do this whole thing from scratch.

[00:16:24] That's basically what we had to do at Virta.

[00:16:27] In fact, what we tried initially was, okay, we have this app.

[00:16:32] We have this science, nutrition science, how we reverse diabetes.

[00:16:35] We know how to monitor patients.

[00:16:36] We know what kind of data we need.

[00:16:38] We basically had a whole new way of delivering care.

[00:16:41] And we went to an, let's just call it, unnamed large health system on the East Coast and said,

[00:16:48] this was 2014.

[00:16:49] We said, we think we can reverse type 2 diabetes.

[00:16:52] Really?

[00:16:52] We think we can reverse type 2 diabetes safely.

[00:16:55] Isn't it remarkable?

[00:16:56] We can save lives, get people of them.

[00:16:58] And this is like a miracle.

[00:17:00] And you guys will be the heroes.

[00:17:02] We will give you the tools.

[00:17:04] We are the Uber.

[00:17:05] You are the Yellow Gap company.

[00:17:06] Here's the app.

[00:17:07] Here's the system here.

[00:17:08] Here's how you do it.

[00:17:09] Guess what?

[00:17:10] It went nowhere.

[00:17:11] It went absolutely nowhere.

[00:17:12] By necessity, we said, hey, the only way we can make this life-saving treatment available to millions of people is we have to build the full stack.

[00:17:22] We need to have our own doctors, our own providers.

[00:17:24] We will have our own software.

[00:17:26] We will have our own processes.

[00:17:27] We will have our own care delivery.

[00:17:29] We will need to have our own way of getting paid for this.

[00:17:32] And so we were forced into this new model.

[00:17:35] And thank God we were, because that has allowed sort of rapid growth and basically doing everything that we have to do.

[00:17:42] But there's a lot of parallels to, I think, what Uber had to do.

[00:17:46] And you could argue the same thing with maybe, I don't know, Airbnb.

[00:17:49] Maybe they didn't go to Marriott Hotels and say, hey, how about we put your rooms into the platform?

[00:17:54] No, they said, we have to create this whole new thing from scratch.

[00:17:57] That's a better way of doing what you've done in the past.

[00:18:01] Well, and I think COVID added, these telemedicine codes have been in proposal for years with no movement at all by anybody, even though people on the provider end wanted that to happen.

[00:18:11] And so I think COVID made that a necessity.

[00:18:14] And I sat on a board of a company and there was an assurance person on this board who said, yeah, these codes are going to reverse after COVID.

[00:18:21] It's one, it's been let out of the bag.

[00:18:22] And two, some of these activities that happened in COVID, like waiting in your car and then walking right into the doctor and things like that have made patients now say, why aren't I a customer?

[00:18:34] Why aren't I treated a little differently?

[00:18:36] So I also think that there's an expectation now of which you're probably riding quite beautifully.

[00:18:43] So how does that payment work without being any proprietary stuff?

[00:18:48] What would be the broad strokes of how that model works?

[00:18:51] Yeah, and absolutely.

[00:18:53] I'm happy to share everything.

[00:18:55] And I'd want others to copy because I think what we are doing is how healthcare should be.

[00:19:00] So let's start from the kind of top down.

[00:19:04] Number one, our paying customer is the payer who's carrying the healthcare costs and the payer who's benefiting from potential reversing type U diabetes and normal cost savings.

[00:19:15] So again, that is in America, it's a self-insured employer or a health plan with fully insured population or some government entities like the VA.

[00:19:24] So they are our customers.

[00:19:25] So we contract with them.

[00:19:27] So that's the number one thing.

[00:19:28] And the economic pitch to them is we said about, this is a huge number, $6,000 per person living with type 2 diabetes on average per year.

[00:19:43] We charge you less than half of how much we save you.

[00:19:48] So it's the rare thing in healthcare that there's a new innovation that improves outcomes dramatically.

[00:19:53] And it also makes you money.

[00:19:54] So that's basically our pitch.

[00:19:56] What's there not to like?

[00:19:58] So that's the payer.

[00:19:59] Then secondly, we also say you don't take any engagement risk.

[00:20:04] You don't take any outcomes risk because Virta only gets paid on a per patient basis that we actually treat and they engage and act it with us.

[00:20:16] And unless we deliver certain lofty outcomes in terms of diabetes improvement and weight loss and eliminating costly medications as unnecessary, you pay nothing.

[00:20:27] We literally put 100% of our fees at risk.

[00:20:30] So we put our money where our mouth is.

[00:20:32] And the way it works is we effectively use existing billing codes to charge one monthly bundle.

[00:20:40] So if you become our patient, your payer pays a couple of hundred bucks per month for your treatment, all inclusive.

[00:20:47] And we eat all the costs.

[00:20:48] If you drop out because you were successful or you didn't like the treatment or whatever, we get paid nothing.

[00:20:54] And then also at the end of each year, we'll look at the outcomes with our client and say,

[00:20:58] if we didn't reach these lofty goals that we know translate into savings, we rebate the money back.

[00:21:04] So it's an absolutely no risk proposition to our client.

[00:21:09] They make money while reversing type 2 diabetes or helping someone lose a lot of weight.

[00:21:14] And if they don't, they pay nothing.

[00:21:17] And so that's why I said in the beginning that I'd want everyone to copy this because isn't this what healthcare should be?

[00:21:23] Which is we're here to help you.

[00:21:24] If we don't help you, you shouldn't pay.

[00:21:26] And we only get paid for results.

[00:21:29] Unfortunately, most of the US healthcare is still is fee for service.

[00:21:32] So if you're a hospital CEO, you're like running a hotel, heads in a pillow.

[00:21:36] I want every bed to be full, which has nothing to do with outcomes.

[00:21:40] Right?

[00:21:41] And I think you said something earlier about the reversal of type 2 diabetes.

[00:21:45] What strikes me is the companion of letting type 2 diabetes get too far is cardiovascular disease, end-stage renal disease, nerve damage,

[00:21:54] all these other things that when you cross that line, you cannot come back for.

[00:21:59] And so it strikes me how important this program is to catch early.

[00:22:03] So are insurers, when someone's in that pre-diabetic stage, are insurers willing to cover that?

[00:22:09] Or are they waiting for them to cross the line to be an official diabetic?

[00:22:13] Yeah.

[00:22:14] You made a broader point, which is that in American market-driven healthcare system,

[00:22:19] there's actually very little incentive to invest into treatments that will save money more than two years out.

[00:22:28] And why is that?

[00:22:29] Because most people change their insurance company within sort of 24 months.

[00:22:34] And yes, it would make sense to invest early into prevention,

[00:22:40] but most payers don't have economic incentive to do that.

[00:22:43] So fortunately, with what we do at Virta is we can show savings a break even in less than six months.

[00:22:51] And within first year, our payer clients already make money.

[00:22:54] And then in the second year, save them even more money.

[00:22:57] So this is, by the way, anyone entering the U.S. healthcare,

[00:23:01] and if their value proposition is, I'm going to save you money payer,

[00:23:05] it 100% needs to happen in the first 24 months, preferably in the first 12 months.

[00:23:10] It's any kind of, hey, let's help someone lose 15 pounds because five, six, seven years down the road,

[00:23:16] it's going to lower healthcare costs.

[00:23:19] The brutal fact is that commercial payers in America have absolutely no interest in that.

[00:23:25] Absolutely no interest in that.

[00:23:27] It's sad, but this is how it works.

[00:23:29] I used to answer your question.

[00:23:31] We actually have a lot of patients who've had type 2 diabetes for 20 years.

[00:23:35] They've lost the feeling.

[00:23:36] They may have even had one leg amputated, lost the feeling in their fingers.

[00:23:41] Their kidneys are not yet quite in dialysis, but in a really bad shape.

[00:23:44] We can still help them.

[00:23:45] We can likely or potentially still reverse their diabetes, get them completely off of insulin.

[00:23:51] We publish data.

[00:23:53] We can improve kidney function based on EGFR, come from 3B to 2B, which is unheard of.

[00:24:00] This is published period with data.

[00:24:01] We can get hypertension down, liver markers improves.

[00:24:06] So non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, to say it's reversed may be too strong, but improves based on liver markers, kidney markers improve.

[00:24:14] So I'd say it's never too late, but you're absolutely right that obviously if you lost the limp, we can't get your limp back.

[00:24:20] But we get reports of getting your feeling back to your fingers, your eyesight improves.

[00:24:25] So it's never too late.

[00:24:28] And unfortunately, in the U.S. healthcare system, they actually do have an incentive to help the people who are the costliest rather than the ones earlier in the sort of pre-diabetes and diabetes process.

[00:24:40] So it is what it is.

[00:24:41] And we just have to play the game by the rules and help anyone we can and whoever our payer clients are willing to cover.

[00:24:47] So health illiteracy is one of the biggest contributions to chronic disease.

[00:24:53] And I remember, I wish I found this program 20 years ago, but I actually decided after a period of high pressure to go see a functional medicine doctor.

[00:25:03] And I've been with them probably for 20 years.

[00:25:05] And I recall that, so 20 years ago, my CRP was 10.

[00:25:09] And for the audience, 1 to 10 is the range or 0 to 10.

[00:25:14] And if you're over 10, your cardiovascular risk is incredibly high.

[00:25:19] And through diet and looking at metabolism, he was able to get me down to below 0.3.

[00:25:25] And I've been there now for 20 plus years.

[00:25:27] But what struck me is I felt fine and I never knew.

[00:25:30] And so then years later, I was trying to drop some weight and I went to a dietician.

[00:25:36] And again, consider myself a pretty well-educated guy.

[00:25:40] And how food pyramid works with real life and how it works with maybe me personally was completely different.

[00:25:49] And so I got a huge education.

[00:25:51] So how much of your model is not only educating, but having that personalized, I don't want to call it personalized medicine because it's not a drug,

[00:26:00] but it is personalized education for sure.

[00:26:03] Honestly, if we dumb it down, it's 100%.

[00:26:05] It's 100%.

[00:26:06] And this is for listeners.

[00:26:08] If they're like, what is the CRP?

[00:26:09] So the C-reactive protein, it's one of the inflammation markers with wide blood cell count.

[00:26:14] And when you are insulin resistant, when you're inflamed, which are the drivers of obesity and type 2 diabetes, although there's still some debate.

[00:26:23] Those numbers are usually completely out of whack.

[00:26:26] Completely out of whack, like through the roof.

[00:26:27] And this is not a personal health podcast, not the bracket, but I'm in the same camp with you.

[00:26:33] But mine is CRP now below 0.2.

[00:26:37] And in some lab results, it's like undetectable, which is insane.

[00:26:40] Like inflammation is practically zero.

[00:26:42] And I should add that we publish now a dozen peer-reviewed papers from the VertiHealth Clinical Outcomes for a prospective clinical trial.

[00:26:50] And then in some retrospective data as well.

[00:26:53] And that is a universal outcome.

[00:26:55] Inflammation comes down.

[00:26:57] CRP comes down.

[00:26:59] White blood cell count comes down.

[00:27:01] Like systematically, people can find the peer-reviewed results from our website.

[00:27:05] But yeah, it comes down to nutrition.

[00:27:07] But it has to be highly individualized.

[00:27:10] And that's one of the secrets to our success.

[00:27:12] Not just the kind of the core nutrition science.

[00:27:14] How do you get inflammation down?

[00:27:17] How do you eliminate hunger and cravings?

[00:27:18] But I often give these sort of simple examples.

[00:27:22] Nutrition is, first of all, it is like religion or politics.

[00:27:25] Like you have to play very carefully.

[00:27:27] However, it is a fundamental driver of metabolic health.

[00:27:30] And one fundamental force behind type 2 diabetes and obesity.

[00:27:35] And so I give these examples that if you're a vegetarian, for whatever reason, whether that's a religious reason or other reason, you tell that person to have bacon and eggs for breakfast, you lose them immediately and vice versa.

[00:27:46] And then there's all kinds of other reasons.

[00:27:48] What kind of food do you have access to?

[00:27:50] We work with U.S. Foods, which has mostly truck drivers as employees.

[00:27:53] Guess what?

[00:27:54] They mostly have access to fast food restaurants on the truck stops.

[00:27:58] We work with the Masan Tuketekua Tribal Nation.

[00:28:01] This is Native Americans and many of them work in casinos.

[00:28:04] Guess what kind of food they have access to?

[00:28:06] And so we have to be able to customize the nutrition recommendations within those constraints.

[00:28:13] Because if you cannot, you will fail 100% time.

[00:28:16] And then there's cultural foods supported too, right?

[00:28:19] That's another thing is, I remember, I've told this story before, so I apologize to my audience.

[00:28:23] But being at a Mississippi end-stage renal disease dialysis clinic where the doctor is giving this gentleman a lecture on his bun rate and he'd been eating a lot of tomatoes.

[00:28:33] And it was a certain season and his wife had made this dude tomatoes.

[00:28:38] It was a family tradition and he was eating it even though he knew he shouldn't.

[00:28:42] And so it wasn't that it wasn't a literacy in the sense that he wasn't educated, but he didn't want to insult his wife by not eating this.

[00:28:51] So there's a mental health and a cultural aspect to this too that I imagine is part of your process.

[00:28:56] Yeah, yeah.

[00:28:57] And just to go back to the literacy, it's not just the patients, but it's also the providers.

[00:29:01] So I'll give you just an example.

[00:29:04] With our patients, oftentimes the reaction, let's just say they've had diabetes, type 2 diabetes for say 12 years.

[00:29:14] They've been taking the insulin shot potentially, let's say 2-3 times a day for a decade.

[00:29:19] In 30 to 60 days, it's very likely that they are completely off of insulin.

[00:29:23] Their blood sugar is down.

[00:29:25] They're feeling better.

[00:29:26] They're sleeping through the night the first time because most people have sleep apnea.

[00:29:29] And the reaction is anger.

[00:29:31] It is anger because they go,

[00:29:34] what the if?

[00:29:35] Why was I suffering from this for a decade?

[00:29:40] Why didn't anyone tell me?

[00:29:42] Why didn't I know that I was, we use the term carbohydrate intolerant.

[00:29:46] If your body isn't metabolizing it, your blood sugars are high, your inflammation is high.

[00:29:50] Don't put more of that poison into your body.

[00:29:52] They're angry.

[00:29:53] And that's a literacy issue.

[00:29:55] Nobody has told them.

[00:29:56] How about providers?

[00:29:57] Every provider is well-meaning.

[00:29:59] People go to medicine because they want to help people.

[00:30:01] But guess what?

[00:30:01] You can come out of Harvard Medical School with 30 minutes of nutrition training.

[00:30:06] 30 minutes.

[00:30:07] And I'm a scientist by training.

[00:30:09] I believe in Western medicine, 100% evidence-based, prospective trials,

[00:30:15] as much placebo control, blinded as possible.

[00:30:17] Obviously with nutrition, it's harder, pure evidence, whatnot.

[00:30:20] But our system is so focused on diagnosis and then the treatment is a molecule

[00:30:26] or some sort of operation.

[00:30:29] As opposed to saying, we put food into our mouths.

[00:30:33] The only molecules that truly are in like the billions and trillions every day is food.

[00:30:38] And there's somehow, it's almost like we've separated.

[00:30:41] We call this the Western medicine where we diagnose you and prescribe a drug.

[00:30:44] And then this kind of food and nutrition is all voodoo science and tree hugging,

[00:30:49] which is complete bullshit.

[00:30:50] It is absolutely wrong.

[00:30:52] If you want to make yourself sick, eat the wrong stuff for six months and you're sick.

[00:30:57] If you want to heal that, eat the right stuff and you heal yourself.

[00:31:01] But somehow that's been almost like excluded from a Western medicine.

[00:31:06] And like you mentioned, I went to this interpretive doctor.

[00:31:09] And by the way, many respected medical doctors, they look down on those docs because they're

[00:31:15] like, they're not.

[00:31:16] They're the last from the medical school who graduated last in my class.

[00:31:20] And then they went into this kind of voodoo science.

[00:31:23] That's ridiculous.

[00:31:24] It's absolutely ridiculous.

[00:31:26] And so back to the health literature, that is, that's a problem.

[00:31:29] That is an absolute problem.

[00:31:30] People don't know what drives metabolic health and how that is nutrition, people, the individuals,

[00:31:36] and then also providers.

[00:31:37] And we've been trying to break that by being very science and evidence-based as part of

[00:31:42] health.

[00:31:42] Like we started a company with a five-year prospective clinical trial, although we didn't

[00:31:46] have to.

[00:31:46] We don't need FDA approval to tell what to eat, but we wanted to do that so that we can

[00:31:51] show the evidence and stand behind the data and have the confidence to say that, hey, nutrition

[00:31:57] can be used as a treatment for a very complex disease and a late stage disease like type

[00:32:03] 2 diabetes.

[00:32:03] I don't know if you saw last week in the New York Times, they had a map of the world in

[00:32:07] cancer rates per capita.

[00:32:09] I did not see.

[00:32:10] And the U.S. glowed, obviously very different from the rest of the world.

[00:32:15] And I couldn't help thinking it's our food standards, our food quality.

[00:32:20] 100%.

[00:32:21] 100%.

[00:32:21] And obviously there could be contributing, you could say pollution.

[00:32:23] And obviously we don't know, but it's like everything affects everything, but it's the

[00:32:28] Occam's ratio.

[00:32:29] Let's find the simplest solution.

[00:32:30] What's different here from somewhere else.

[00:32:32] We have a phenomenal medical system.

[00:32:34] It's just a sick care system.

[00:32:35] We are very good at saving people after their first and second heart attack.

[00:32:39] We are very good at performing heart surgery.

[00:32:41] We are very good at dialysis.

[00:32:43] But guess what?

[00:32:44] That is way ridiculously too late and too low.

[00:32:48] Like when someone's kidneys have popped after 20 years of diabetes, we are very good at

[00:32:52] that.

[00:32:52] And in fact, we spend 1%, 1 cent of every tax dollar goes to dialysis, which is almost

[00:32:58] exclusively a late stage type 2 diabetes treatment.

[00:33:01] We could eliminate 100% of that by reversing diabetes nutritionally like a year, two, five,

[00:33:07] 10 years before.

[00:33:08] And yeah, we have an amazing healthcare system, but it's truly a sick care system.

[00:33:12] And we've forgotten the fact that nutrition drives almost everything.

[00:33:15] And I don't know if you want to touch GLB-1 drugs, which is exactly at the center of

[00:33:21] this.

[00:33:22] Why don't you explain what that drug class is to put the consumer brand on it so people...

[00:33:27] Yeah.

[00:33:28] First of all, anyone listening there like, let me ask you, have you heard of what

[00:33:31] Ozempic or Mungara over the last two years?

[00:33:33] I bet you have.

[00:33:35] And these are brand names of...

[00:33:37] And all we go with it.

[00:33:38] These are brand names of a drug class that's called GLB-1s.

[00:33:41] It is not a completely new drug.

[00:33:43] In fact, the first GLB-1 in America was FDA approved for treating type 2 diabetes, 2005.

[00:33:48] So we're talking 20 years.

[00:33:51] So it's a class of drugs.

[00:33:53] And I try to be here.

[00:33:55] It's very simple because we could spend an hour talking about the very details.

[00:33:58] But it's a class of drugs that initially was approved to treat type 2 diabetes because

[00:34:03] it lowers your blood sugar.

[00:34:05] That's the desired outcome in treating a symptom of type 2 diabetes.

[00:34:09] But then over time, people noticed that, oh, my appetite goes down as well.

[00:34:14] So it helped people lose weight.

[00:34:15] And the reason you may have heard the word Ozempic or Wigovie and Mungara over the last

[00:34:20] 24 months is that this same molecule and same class of drugs was first approved for treating

[00:34:27] obesity just a couple of years ago.

[00:34:29] And the first branded drug for that, I believe, was Wigovie, which is the same molecule as Ozempic.

[00:34:35] It's called semacutide.

[00:34:37] And Novonotis is a manufacturer of that.

[00:34:39] And there's still a lot of excitement behind these drugs.

[00:34:42] And for good reason, because they actually work.

[00:34:45] They do work.

[00:34:47] So if you talk to someone who takes these drugs for weight loss and you ask them, why does

[00:34:51] it work?

[00:34:51] You've lost a lot of weight and you can, depending on the headline figures, 10, 15%, some of

[00:34:56] the 20% of body weight in some of these clinical trials.

[00:34:58] It works because guess what?

[00:35:00] You're not hungry.

[00:35:01] You're not hungry.

[00:35:02] Your food cravings go away.

[00:35:04] So there's been a lot of excitement behind these drugs, although they are new.

[00:35:08] They are very expensive.

[00:35:09] List price is more than $1,000 per patient per month today for all these branded drugs.

[00:35:15] And understandably, most payers don't want to cover them or want to cover them for a small

[00:35:20] group of patients.

[00:35:21] Then there's a real fundamental problem with these drugs, which is that the moment you come

[00:35:25] off, guess what happens?

[00:35:28] Cravings and hunger comes back.

[00:35:30] And so all clinical trials, including the clinical trials from the pharmaceutical companies,

[00:35:35] it's like a V-shaped weight curve.

[00:35:36] You lose your weight when you're in a drug, you come off.

[00:35:40] And when we've surveyed providers and patients, murdering of patients, actually, they either

[00:35:48] cannot or don't want to be on these drugs forever.

[00:35:51] There's side effects.

[00:35:52] They just don't want to be injecting drugs to themselves.

[00:35:54] There's costs.

[00:35:55] So there's this sort of consumer halo now that we have a magic bill for obesity.

[00:36:00] Everybody wants to be and should be on these drugs forever.

[00:36:02] In the real world, very few people want to be on these drugs for more than six or 12

[00:36:07] months.

[00:36:08] So there's an issue like how do you sustain the weight loss?

[00:36:10] And so I'll just say one more thing and let you ask questions.

[00:36:13] These drugs work very well in affecting how much you eat, how much you eat, but they don't

[00:36:19] change what you eat.

[00:36:21] And so we come back to the same thing we talked about 10 minutes ago, which is you have to

[00:36:26] fix the nutrition knowing what you should eat early on and the moment you go on these

[00:36:32] drugs.

[00:36:32] And we actually have a very exciting proof point at Virta to show that we can deliver a sustained

[00:36:38] weight loss.

[00:36:38] I think we're the only company that has published period results.

[00:36:43] This came out around March or April of this year, showing that when people come completely

[00:36:47] off of a Zenpick, we can sustain that weight loss for more than a year, purely nutritionally.

[00:36:53] Guess why?

[00:36:54] Because we use nutrition to eliminate hunger and cravings.

[00:36:59] And we change what you eat, not just how much you eat.

[00:37:04] But to summarize, exciting class of new drugs, GLP wants for obesity.

[00:37:08] I think it would be a useful tool in the obesity toolkit.

[00:37:11] But this, what you sometimes read in social media that we have a magic bill for obesity,

[00:37:16] everyone should be on these drugs and obesity is solved, is absolute utter bullshit.

[00:37:21] It is not playing out in the real world.

[00:37:23] They affect how much you eat, but not what you eat.

[00:37:26] And if you want to fix your metabolic health, you have to change what you eat, even if you use

[00:37:31] this drug at some point as a tool in the toolkit.

[00:37:34] So I just want to add this, and some people are probably thinking about that process.

[00:37:38] This was originally not only for diabetes, but for weight loss for fatty liver disease,

[00:37:44] fat being between your organs, right?

[00:37:45] That was the intention of it.

[00:37:47] And people kept going.

[00:37:48] And so a couple of doctors that I've talked to on the functional medicine side have suggested

[00:37:53] part of this problem is staying on it is you actually start losing muscle also.

[00:37:59] And what struck me, what you just said is you're not changing your eating.

[00:38:03] They're probably not on the high protein side.

[00:38:05] And in some cases, they're finding that you can't get this muscle back.

[00:38:09] We also have this whole aging thing that after, what is it, 30 or 40 for a male, you start

[00:38:14] losing so many pounds of muscle a year.

[00:38:15] And your goal is to try to maintain as much of that for both metabolic health, but also

[00:38:21] physical health.

[00:38:22] I think we might find that there's going to be a complication there.

[00:38:26] Now, as you look at your disease model, it seems to me that if I look at the training

[00:38:33] on programs for end-stage renal disease and for cardiac people that are going on diets

[00:38:38] and stuff, there's a real synergy with your model.

[00:38:40] Have you guys looked into this yet?

[00:38:43] The synergies with other...

[00:38:44] Your prop has benefits in these other areas.

[00:38:48] They may need a little more, some tweaking, but it seems to me that they're all interrelated

[00:38:52] also in terms of the benefit.

[00:38:54] Yeah.

[00:38:55] Interesting you asked.

[00:38:56] And again, I'm not a medical doctor and I don't play one on the internet, but I can

[00:38:59] certainly quote outcomes that have been published and have been peer-reviewed.

[00:39:03] So here's what happens.

[00:39:05] And I've been talking about it here.

[00:39:06] We're solving type 2 diabetes, obesity.

[00:39:08] People's partial growth come down.

[00:39:09] They get over insulin on the diabetes side.

[00:39:11] And on Verta treatment, they lose 13% average body weight.

[00:39:15] One year, so standard two years.

[00:39:16] So I like to talk about diabetes and obesity, but what we have shown and published, again,

[00:39:22] this is peer-reviewed.

[00:39:23] When we deliver those outcomes, diabetes and obesity are just two of the symptoms of poor

[00:39:30] metabolic health.

[00:39:31] The following are the other things that improve.

[00:39:34] Cardiovascular disease risk markers improve.

[00:39:37] Hypertension, so high blood pressure comes down.

[00:39:39] I already mentioned inflammation as a CRB and white blood cell count comes down.

[00:39:43] Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease markers improve.

[00:39:47] Kidney markers, EGFR and other markers improve.

[00:39:51] And we might be able to say in the future that we can reverse kidney disease, but that would

[00:39:55] be too overreaching at this point.

[00:39:58] Depressive symptoms improve.

[00:40:00] Obviously, weight comes down.

[00:40:01] I already mentioned that.

[00:40:02] Sleep improves.

[00:40:03] That's also a palpocin pyramid.

[00:40:05] Let's see if I'm missing anything else there.

[00:40:08] So what does this mean?

[00:40:09] It means that either...

[00:40:11] And by the way, we can't prove which weight is this, but either...

[00:40:14] Either it's all about the weight loss.

[00:40:16] So if you're obese and you lose weight, like five or six chronic diseases disappear and improve.

[00:40:21] It's either all about the weight loss or we are fundamentally nutritionally addressing

[00:40:26] the underlying drivers of poor metabolic health.

[00:40:30] And all these five or six or seven, quote unquote, different chronic diseases are actually

[00:40:35] symptoms of the same and they all improve.

[00:40:39] But that's what we've shown and proven with the PRU data that we have.

[00:40:44] And now, interestingly, if you forward what the GLP-1 manufacturers like Novodontis and

[00:40:49] Eli Lilly have published, they are starting to show the same data that Virta Health has

[00:40:55] shown that we can do nutritionally.

[00:40:56] So you've heard these news like, oh, GLP-1 people lose weight.

[00:40:59] But wait, it's not just that.

[00:41:02] Cardiovascular disease risk markers improve.

[00:41:03] We see something in the liver that's improving.

[00:41:05] So that's exciting.

[00:41:07] But anyone who thinks that it's just the molecule that's doing some miracle things in all parts

[00:41:13] of your body is wrong.

[00:41:14] Why?

[00:41:15] Because we've shown the same or more outcomes nutritionally, purely nutritionally.

[00:41:22] So you can nutritionally affect five, six, seven chronic diseases, which may end up being

[00:41:26] one and the same.

[00:41:28] They're just symptoms of the same for metabolic health.

[00:41:31] Which, by the way, is driving more than half of the four trillion U.S. healthcare costs.

[00:41:37] More than half.

[00:41:38] Do you think that you would anticipate in your future business model that pharmaceutical

[00:41:43] companies would be partnering with you?

[00:41:45] Because part of what they have an obligation to do is follow up with their patients when they

[00:41:51] titrate off a drug and making sure they maintain.

[00:41:54] It's part of their program offering.

[00:41:57] It's part of the evidence they present in commercialization phase to the FDA that they're

[00:42:02] good citizens.

[00:42:03] Has anyone approached you guys yet on that?

[00:42:05] It might happen.

[00:42:06] We'll see.

[00:42:06] Let's put it this way.

[00:42:07] And I should also add here that somebody might be listening.

[00:42:10] Oh, this guy's all about nutrition.

[00:42:11] He's so anti-pharmaceutical.

[00:42:12] No, I'm not.

[00:42:13] I am pro-science.

[00:42:15] 100% pro-science.

[00:42:16] And it is very clear to me that, first of all, I'm a huge believer in Western medicine

[00:42:22] and science.

[00:42:23] So we need many tools in a toolkit to fight disease.

[00:42:28] And when it comes to obesity, yeah, there's a place for bariatric surgery, hopefully for

[00:42:32] a very small group.

[00:42:33] Yeah, there's a place for medications like GLB-1s, but hopefully not for a large group.

[00:42:38] And then I think the tool that works for most is cheapest, is safest, and definitely most

[00:42:43] sustainable if you have the right support and the right science is nutrition.

[00:42:47] So I'm definitely not against pharmaceuticals.

[00:42:50] I'm just saying you need a toolkit and you need the appropriate tool for the appropriate

[00:42:55] patient at the appropriate time.

[00:42:57] And nutrition, certainly we know the side effects of poor nutrition, of great nutrition, healthy

[00:43:02] nutrition, none.

[00:43:03] But we never know the side effects of all these other tools, especially long-term.

[00:43:08] So I think that's how I see the future, that when we address these huge issues like obesity

[00:43:13] and diabetes, nutrition comes first, and then we introduce other tools where necessary

[00:43:18] and where needed.

[00:43:20] And I think that's how we have to solve these diseases, not by just throwing a bunch of

[00:43:25] medications to everyone and say, hey, this is going to be solved.

[00:43:28] That is not cost-effective.

[00:43:30] It's also not scientifically the right approach.

[00:43:32] And we suddenly won't see sustained outcomes.

[00:43:34] And we've seen this in type 2 diabetes.

[00:43:36] We now have 30 years of history, like trying every medication, huge amount of innovation,

[00:43:42] huge amount of innovation.

[00:43:43] There's a big paper in JAMA, very respected, the journal 2019, looking at the last 10-year

[00:43:49] diabetes outcomes in America.

[00:43:51] Guess what?

[00:43:52] Have not improved.

[00:43:53] More people have diabetes.

[00:43:55] Individuals will have poorer outcomes and a higher...

[00:43:58] And we have had phenomenal innovation in pharmaceuticals.

[00:44:02] Not going better.

[00:44:03] Why?

[00:44:04] Because we're treating the symptom of the disease by prescribing drugs that is helpful versus

[00:44:10] doing nothing.

[00:44:11] But the fundamental cure or the solution is to address the underlying drivers with nutrition

[00:44:17] and reverse the disease.

[00:44:19] So how do you see your company 10 years from now?

[00:44:22] Where are they fitting within the healthcare system and what sort of relationships are changing

[00:44:28] versus where they are today in terms of your place within the system?

[00:44:32] Yeah, I hope.

[00:44:34] And I think the following two or three things will happen.

[00:44:37] One, it's universally known that some of these diseases that were called chronic and progressive,

[00:44:43] such as type 2 diabetes, we all agree that they're absolutely 100% reversible nutritionally.

[00:44:48] So I think that's one.

[00:44:49] And I hope that's being taught at medical schools too.

[00:44:52] Too bad you have diabetes, but don't worry.

[00:44:54] We're going to reverse it nutritionally pretty quickly.

[00:44:56] So I think, I hope that's one.

[00:44:58] I hope number two is that nutrition is taken seriously as a tool in a toolkit and covered by

[00:45:04] payers, including government and Medicare.

[00:45:07] Absolutely.

[00:45:08] If we don't do that, we're just going to bankrupt the country.

[00:45:10] I think that's the second thing.

[00:45:11] And then the third one that I'm excited about is that I think there's still diseases in the horizon

[00:45:16] that we think are some sort of, there's no way nutrition can play a part of.

[00:45:20] And one example would be Alzheimer's.

[00:45:22] Again, this is, I might be overreaching, but I'm reasonably confident that in 10 years time,

[00:45:29] nutrition is a key treatment in addressing potentially reversing Alzheimer's.

[00:45:35] And in fact, some people call Alzheimer's the type 3 diabetes.

[00:45:38] So there's a lot of correlations with obesity and inflammation and type 2 diabetes with Alzheimer's.

[00:45:43] I think we'll discover that nutrition can be used to treat some of these diseases that

[00:45:50] may now seem like, oh, you just need a miracle molecule.

[00:45:52] I think we're going to, yes, I agree.

[00:45:55] I think we're going to find that it's this healthy fats our brain needs, that we have a

[00:45:59] paradigm.

[00:46:00] If you go back to really the 50s and we'll watch what President Eisenhower was in there

[00:46:05] and you watch the battle over what was initially sugar, the sugar industry convinced, no, go

[00:46:10] look at the fat industry.

[00:46:12] And somehow we started driving down fat and you can actually see a little bit of a correlation

[00:46:17] between that and the increase in Alzheimer's, which there may be truth in there.

[00:46:22] There may just be a correlation with baby boomers aging up.

[00:46:24] But I absolutely agree with you.

[00:46:27] So what's the biggest lesson you've learned in this healthcare journey thus far?

[00:46:31] Ah, first of all, it definitely has been the most rewarding professional experience for

[00:46:36] me.

[00:46:36] So I've been a founder since 1999, founder operator.

[00:46:40] So I guess 25 years doing this hard thing of building companies, which some people say

[00:46:45] it's like eating broken class every day.

[00:46:48] Sometimes it is.

[00:46:49] So I would say it's been the most rewarding experience in terms of the impact.

[00:46:54] And it's so meaningful to have these individuals now in hundreds of thousands coming to us and

[00:47:00] say, hey, you saved my life.

[00:47:01] Like it never gets old.

[00:47:03] And in fact, people don't see the video here, but I have Alberta t-shirt and the logo.

[00:47:07] So we have not one, not two, not three, but many patients who permanently tattooed, tattooed

[00:47:13] this logo in their bodies after we reversed their type 2 diabetes.

[00:47:17] And working for a company that you've been a co-founder of and it's a for-profit, but

[00:47:22] people put tattooed the logo.

[00:47:24] So it's, I don't know, Harley Davidson, maybe it's that kind of a brand.

[00:47:26] So it's a very kind of a moving and meaningful experience personally.

[00:47:31] So that's one.

[00:47:31] And then the second thing in terms of talking about business, US healthcare is so complicated

[00:47:37] that I've learned, and I have a lot of humility about this, that the best product, best science,

[00:47:44] the best outcomes alone does not win.

[00:47:47] In fact, sometimes the go-to-market and the business model and the distribution is more

[00:47:52] important.

[00:47:52] And I've learned that to some extent the hard way, because I was a little bit idealistic

[00:47:57] earlier.

[00:47:58] I said, if we can reverse diabetes, everyone will be knocking on our door and the world's

[00:48:03] going to change.

[00:48:04] This is like a miracle.

[00:48:05] Someone's going to win a Nobel prize for systematically reversing type 2 diabetes.

[00:48:09] And we don't even need a sales team.

[00:48:11] I was so wrong.

[00:48:12] So that's another, and I would say any entrepreneur looking to enter US healthcare, particularly if

[00:48:17] you try to operate in this system of somebody else pays versus have a website and people

[00:48:21] come directly and book their credit card.

[00:48:22] Yeah.

[00:48:23] It's a lot of humility.

[00:48:24] You have to figure out your business model and go to market and distribution and really

[00:48:29] not try to over innovate and over disrupt there because startup will not change this $4 trillion

[00:48:35] industry in terms of how the wiring works and how people get paid and how the claims travel

[00:48:41] and so forth.

[00:48:42] Well, I think as I listened to you, I'm currently, I have a website, which I mentioned earlier

[00:48:47] healthcare data center where I do all my research.

[00:48:49] And I'm currently looking at the category of personal healthcare records, which is different

[00:48:54] from an electronic health record.

[00:48:56] And the challenge of that category is who pays.

[00:48:59] And then you step back and you realize that there's a bridge that needs to be created between these devices that collect data at home to bring it into the healthcare system.

[00:49:09] So as I listened to you, I think of, I see a precision medicine play in your model.

[00:49:14] I listened to you and I recognized that if you look at what 23andMe did, all of a sudden I used to watch their revenue and it went up one day and they had enough non-personalized health data to be able to sell it to pharmaceutical industries to focus on better ways of taking care of things and better models.

[00:49:32] And so I can envision that.

[00:49:33] So it's quite a journey you've been on.

[00:49:35] Yeah.

[00:49:35] Thank you.

[00:49:35] I like to say it's still day one.

[00:49:37] It's always day one.

[00:49:39] Anything else you'd like to share with the audience?

[00:49:40] I think that's all.

[00:49:42] And I would say if in your family is someone is suffering from obesity and type two diabetes, which by the way, you're not alone because 70% of American adults have that.

[00:49:51] I would say the key word is there is help.

[00:49:55] That is a reversible condition and a verta can help.

[00:49:58] By the way, we have a lot of free resources.

[00:50:00] If you Google verta help, there's YouTube videos with millions of views.

[00:50:04] In fact, you can find information on our website.

[00:50:06] And if you're lucky that your insurance company or employer covers, verta is free.

[00:50:12] So go and research.

[00:50:14] But it's worth researching diabetes and obesity.

[00:50:18] These are reversible conditions nutritionally.

[00:50:20] You don't have to start sticking needles into your body.

[00:50:22] I'll put that in our show notes too.

[00:50:24] So thank you very much.

[00:50:26] Yeah.

[00:50:26] Thank you so much.

[00:50:29] Thanks for tuning into the Chalk Talk Gym podcast.

[00:50:32] For resources, show notes, and ways to get in touch, visit us at chalktalkgym.com.