Monthly Archives: August 2022

From a cup of caffeine to the exact shade of your vegetable, from how much and what kind of exercise you should do to whether broccoli is doing you more harm than good, the era of personalised food, fitness, and medicine is here.

That's the greatest thing that can happen and is a solution that will ultimately help people to live long, says Sajeev Nair, the Co-founder and Chairman of Vieroots Wellness Solutions.

Founded in 2019 by Sajeev and Co-founder Adityanarayan, Bengaluru-based healthtech startup Vieroots Wellness Solutions has pioneered the Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered and Personalised Epigenetic Lifestyle Modifications (EPLIMO) mobile app.

Our goal is to healthfully transform the lives of one crore people through EPLIMO by 2025, Sajeev says.

"As COVID-19 made people realise that they need to take charge of their own health, they started searching for tools and processes to do it. EPLIMO was on time in the market as a solution to their search," he adds.

With the option to store healthcare records for quick reference and locate nearby practitioners, EPLIMO puts everything at its users fingertips.

As COVID-19 altered the dynamics of health and healthcare, bringing several technological interventions in its wake, the pandemic also induced a long-term shift in consumer behaviour and attitudes, redefining relationships with the body and the mind.

The earlier approach of reactionary medicine, as Sajeev calls it visiting a doctor only in times of sicknesshas been steadily changing owing to a quick shift towards slow and sustainable living, and a holistic transformation in lifestyle choices.

The shift is towards long-term solutions and as Sajeev calls it, an early adoption of preventive medicine/preventative healthcare.

In fact, according to Indian market research firm, Numb Research, Indias 443 million millennials spend an average of Rs 4,000 per month on health and wellness services and products.

This is validated by the 5,000+ active user base of EPLIMO, a steadily growing tribe.

More than 200 lifestyle coaches and 500+ wellness consultants are on board with Vieroots.

At one point in time, I used to consume a lot of nutritional supplements and exercise a lot, but I soon learnt that not everything is for everyone. I learnt that some of these supplements can do more harm than good, while some of the exercises can actually kill you. And, that was a big revelation, Sajeev recalls.

In 2005, when I had gone to the US I came across a concept called nutrigenomics (also known as nutritional genomics, the term is broadly used to define the relationship between nutrients, diet and gene expression), which is to primarily decode nutritional aspects based on genomics, he says.

In 2003, the Human Genome Project was completed.

Sajeev soon learnt that one would be able to decode the diverse nutritional requirements of the body based on the DNA.

Hailing from Kerala, serial entrepreneur Sajeev, a well-known wellness evangelist and one of Indias first biohackers, was already working on his wellness business at that time.

The author of The Making of a Superhuman, Sajeev experimented on himself some of the DIY biohacks or personalised lifestyle modifications that he came to understand through his research.

As he started cultivating the space of long healthy fulfilling lives, he soon discovered how it was intrinsically connected with personalised health.

Typically, a customer is delivered a kit enabling them to take 2 ml of their saliva, and the sample is reverse-picked and dispatched to the genomic lab. The lab then decodes ones DNA and assesses it across the metrics of 250 different health conditions.

The DNA report card lets a user receive a host of information: from their risk to lifestyle diseases like diabetes as well as autoimmune diseases to how minerals and vitamins are getting absorbed in their cells and their musculoskeletal structure generativity.

However, Vieroots soon realised that it was not enough.

Imagine when you visit a good doctor for a certain condition or any illness. They sometimes ask seemingly unrelated questions regarding sleep cycle etc. To a lay person, it might seem unrelated, but Sajeev explains that these are deeper questions directly related to ones body and health. For example, whether one is getting good sleep or not is also a determinant of their digestive function.

Vieroots curated a questionnaire of 70 metabolism-related questions, pre-loaded onto their mobile app, EPLIMO. When a user visits the website they are directed to the app, and when they download the app, the user is directed to answer these questions.

Sajeev gives an example: Suppose if you look at a genomic report, an individual might genetically have a higher risk for lactose intolerance. To address the issue of lactose intolerance, the suggested recommendation must be in the nature of don't use dairy products. However, once you go read through the report further, maybe, you will find a higher risk for lower concentrations of calcium, and the stated recommendation would be consume more of calcium-rich foods like milk.

The correlation is missing; the report is only based on condition-to-condition parameters. EPLIMO claims to provide a highly accurate recommendation by correlating the various conditions using the power of ML and AI.

Sajeev describes the personalised health bulletin as an operating manual for the rest of your life as genomic data never changes.

The good thing is that our target group is very defined; they are health-conscious people. We are only targeting people who are already health-conscious, but making mistakes. For example, people who need to make informed choices, be it in exercise or diet, Sajeev explains.

So far, the number of app downloads stands at 5,500 with Tier I comprising 70-80% and the Northeast comprising up to 20%. The average age profile of the user base is between 25 and 55 years.

The entire EPLIMO process, including the counselling and coaching, costs Rs 30,000 plus taxes.

Vieroots has trained wellness or lifestyle coaches with a background in life sciences. Some of them are dieticians, and professionals who have pursued biotechnology courses. All work on a commission basis for generating and supporting sales.

The lifestyle coaches undergo a two-month course, for which Vieroots has affiliated with the Indian Association for Functional Medicine.

The entire process takes about four weeks to six weeks, starting from the delivery of the genomic kit through to the counselling session. The final virtual counselling session takes place in addition to the PDF-format epigenetic personalised lifestyle recommendation manual that the user receives on the app.

Talking about the challenges, Sajeev explains, The first name that comes to a users mind when we talk about healthcare is the doctor. And, yet, you normally visit a doctor when you are sick. Also, most doctors do not have the time or bandwidth to look into preventive healthcare, because they are too busy working on diseases.

In the case of autoimmune diseases, the only medicine available is immunosuppressants. Some genomic report findings have revealed that for some people, nightshade vegetables, the likes of tomatoes and potatoes, have an adverse effect. And interestingly, it was observed that when such people stopped consuming them, their autoimmune disease, for which they have been suffering for years, also subsided, he adds.

Sajeev says that there are no direct competitors or services like EPLIMO. However, he names some of the top players in the "personal genomics market" in India: MayMyGenome, Genebox, and Medgenome.

The bootstrapped startup follows the direct-to-customer revenue model.

We completed a full financial year this year on March 22, and locked in Rs 14.8 crore with a narrow profitability. We have two revenue streams: one is a service, and the second is our nutritional supplements, Sajeev states.

See the rest here:
Vieroots uses genome testing to win over a growing tribe of wellness enthusiasts - YourStory

The existence of the human body is incredibly intriguing and lovely. Many physical processes and defence mechanisms that keep the body safe and healthy are part of who we are naturally. Our skin is same, even.

Therefore, using natural products is the ideal method to enhance the natural properties of skin, and what better way to achieve it than by utilising the superpowers of the legendary Ayurveda! In India, Sri Lanka, and other South Asian countries, the ancient medical system known as Ayurveda is still used today.

The use of Ayurvedic cosmetics was intended to promote longevity and excellent health in addition to improving one's outward beauty. There are many Ayurvedic skin care formulae available today, but in order to get the best results, it's important to know the quality and ingredients of your products.

Haldi (Turmeric)

We all know the benefits of Haldi when it comes to our food but do you know it is also extremely good for our skin. Turmeric contains curcumin, which has anti-aging, anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties. As a result it increases the natural glow and radiance of your skin.

Chandan (Sandalwood)

Sandalwood is an essential Ayurvedic plant that is utilised in many Ayurvedic herbal products. This ancient ingredient contains cooling properties as well as organic brightening components that help heal sun tans, black spots, and uneven skin tone.

Giloy (Heart-leaved Moonseed)

Giloy is an antipyretic herb loaded with antioxidants, which helps to reduce oxidative stress hence delaying skin aging. It also has anti-inflammatory properties that assist in skin tissue regeneration and inflammation reduction.

Amla (Indian Gooseberry)

Amla, or Indian gooseberry, is abundant in Vitamin C and antioxidants, making it a good anti-aging herb. It tightens your skin and gives it a healthy glow. Regular drinking of amla juice increases the collagen production in your skin. External use of Amla extracts in the form of face packs and washes helps to prevent acne, pimples, sunburn, and other skin disorders.

Neem

Neem is another beloved medicinal herb in South-Asian countries. The antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and therapeutic effects of neem leaves and extracts are the reasons for its popularity. It can be used to treat acne and dry skin. Since it stimulates collagen production, it can also help reduce wrinkles and reduce scars.

Kumkumadi Tailam

KumkumadiTailam is an Ayurvedic natural oil with a bunch of brilliant medicinal properties. Its blessings for the pores and skin are extraordinary. It can lessen wrinkles and different symptoms and symptoms of aging, minimise zits and acne, or even deal with pores and skin situations like allergy and more. It additionally reduces melanin formation, lightening the general pores and skin tone and lowering darkish patches.

Since this Ayurvedic oil is antibacterial and anti-inflammatory, it may heal minor wounds at the pores and skin. Moreover, the lac gift as one of the components is an effective antifungal agent, which prevents a bigger variety of infections.

Read the original here:
Herbs radiate and give you youthful skin - The Hans India

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Everything in America is getting older these days. In practically every field of human endeavorpolitics, business, academia, science, sports, pop culturethe average age of achievement and power is rising.

Politics is getting older. Joe Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history. Remarkably, he is still younger than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. And they arent exceptions to the general rule: The Senate is the oldest in history.

Businesses are getting older. The average age of new CEOs at Fortune 500 companies is very likely at its record high, having gradually increased throughout the 21st century. And its not just the boss; the whole workplace is getting older too. Between the 1980s and early 2000s, Americans under 45 accounted for the clear majority of workers. But that's no longer the case, since the large Baby Boomer generation has remained in the labor force longer than previous cohorts.

Science is getting oldernot just in this country, but around the world. Discovery used to be a young persons game. James Watson was 24 when he co-discovered the structure of DNA, and Albert Einstein was 26 when he published his famous papers on the photoelectric effect and special relativity. But in the past few decades, the typical age of scientific achievement has soared. Nobel Prize laureates are getting older in almost every discipline, especially in physics and chemistry. The average age of an investigator at the National Institutes of Health rose from 39 in 1980 to 51 in 2008, and the average age of principal investigators receiving their first major NIH grant increased from about 36 in 1990 to about 45 in 2016. In fact, all of academia is getting older: The average age of college presidents in the U.S. has increased steadily in the past 20 years. From 1995 to 2010, the share of tenured faculty over the age of 60 roughly doubled.

In pop culture, the old isnt going out of style like it used to. The writer Ted Gioia observed that Americans have for several years shifted their music-listening to older songs. In film, the average age of movie stars has steadily increased since 1999, according to an analysis by The Ringer. So far this year, the seven highest-grossing American films are sequels and reboots. Sports such as tennis and football are dominated by superstars (Nadal, Djokovic, Brady, Rodgers) who are unusually old for the game. Incredibly successful young artists and athletes obviously do existbut older songs, older stars, and existing franchises are dominating the cultural landscape in a historically unusual way.

So, whats going on?

1. As rich Americans live longer and healthier lives, American power is aging.

The average American lives longer than they did in 2000, despite life expectancy flatlining in the past decade. Rich Americans have it even better: The wealthiest Americans live at least 10 years longer than the poorest Americans, and that gap is growing.

Since the rising ages of prominent politicians, CEOs, and Nobel Prize winners are whats at issue, a focus on the elite seems appropriate. For most of this century, the richest quartile of men have been adding about 0.2 years to their life expectancy each year. If we extrapolate that annual increase to the entire century, it would suggest that rich men have added roughly four years to their lifespans since 2000. The average age of U.S. senators did, in fact, rise from 59.8 in 2001 to 64.3 in 2021a roughly four-year increase.

But many positions and institutions are getting older much faster than that. A few years ago, Inside Higher Ed noted that for college presidents, 70 seems to be the new 50.

The average age of new CEOs at Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies increased nine years since 2005from 46 to 55. The average age of leading actors in films increased about 12 years since 2001from about 38 to about 50 for male stars.

Maybe we should consider not just life spans, but health spans. In sports, for instance, a superior understanding of diet, exercise, and medicine has allowed stars to extend their careers. The tennis stars Novak Djokovic, 35, and Rafael Nadal, 36, are old for their sport, but theyve somehow won 15 of the last 17 Grand Slam mens tournaments. Three of the last five NFL Most Valuable Player Awards went to quarterbacks over the age of 36Tom Brady in 2017 and Aaron Rodgers in 2020 and 2021. In basketball, LeBron James recently became, at 37, the oldest NBA player to average 30 points per game in a season. The winningest pitcher in Major League Baseball is Justin Verlander, who is 39.

So the longevity factor is twofold. Not only are Americans overall living longer, but richer Americans are living even longer, and rich Americans with access to dietitians, personal exercise, and high-class medical care are extending their primes within the context of longer lives. As a result, we should expect older workers to vigorously contribute to their fields much longer than they used to.

2. As work becomes less physical and more central to modern identity, the old elite are spending more time at work.

Another way to frame the central question here: Why are the Boomer elite working so hard, so late into their lives?

One explanation for the rapid aging of our political leaders, academic faculty, and chief-executive class is that the Boomer generation is choosing to stay in the workforce longer than previous generations did. This has created what the writer Paul Millerd calls a Boomer blockade at the top of many organizations, keeping Gen-X and Millennial workers from promotions. As older workers remain in advanced positions in politics and business, younger workers who would have ascended the ranks in previous decades are getting stuck in the purgatory of upper-middle management.

If one wanted to frame things more generously, one could say that declining ageism has allowed older Americans to stay in jobs that they really like and dont want to leave. These folks could retire, but they love their work and draw an enormous amount of pride from their careers.

But 70- and 80-somethings loving their work so much that they never retire is awfully close to something Ive called workismthe idea that work has, for many elites, become a kind of personal religion in an era of otherwise declining religiosity. Workism isnt all bad; its nice that the economy has evolved from brawn to brainy labor that gives people a sense of daily enrichment and higher purpose. But workism isnt all good, either: The corner office was not designed to function as a temple, and a work-centric identity can lead to a kind of spiritual emptiness. Whats more, though this subject is complicated and sensitive, a lot of very elderly people in positions of great power are clinging to their jobs long after their cognitive and verbal capacities have peaked. This is not a good recipe for high-functioning institutions.

3. The burden of knowledge: Science is getting older, because were all getting smarter.

Longer lives and increasing workism could explain why our political and business leaders are quickly getting older. But they dont explain the biggest mysteries Ive highlighted in the field of sciencesuch as why the average age of Nobel Prize laureates has increased or why young star researchers are rarer than they once were.

The best explanation for both of these trends is the burden of knowledge theory. We are learning more about the world every year, but the more we learn about any subject, the harder it is to master all the facts out there and push the frontier of knowledge outward.

This theory is pretty obvious when you think about it for a few seconds. Lets imagine, for example, that you want to revolutionize the field of genetics. Three hundred years ago, before any such domain existed, you could have made a splash just by shouting, Ive got a strong feeling that genes are a thing! Two hundred years ago, you could have done it by watching some peas grow in your backyard and using your powers of observation to form a theory of inheritance. But now that we know that genes are a thing and have figured out dominant and recessive genes and have mapped the genome, the most groundbreaking research in the field is really, really complicated. To understand the genetic underpinnings of a complex disease such as schizophrenia, hundreds of people around the planet have to synthesize data on the infinitely complex interplay of genes and environment.

The burden of knowledge affects the average age of scientists in several ways. First, attaining mastery at a young age of an existing domain becomes harder. Since scientists have to learn so much in fields such as physics or chemistry, they take longer to become established, and the average age for achieving breakthrough work (or fancy prizes) goes up and up. Second, the knowledge burden necessitates large teams of researchers to make new breakthroughs, and these teams tend to be led by older principal investigators. Third, scientific-funding institutions, such as the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, may be awarding a disproportionate amount of funding to older researchers precisely because theyre biased against younger researchers who they assume havent overcome the knowledge burdens of their field. Or perhaps, as academia and funding institutions get older, they develop an implicit ageism against younger researchers, who they assume are too naive to do paradigm-shifting work in established domains.

The burden of knowledge theory represents a double-edged sword of progress. It is precisely because we know so much about the world that it is getting harder to learn more about the world. And one side effect of this phenomenon is that science is rapidly aging.

4. Data dulling has made institutions risk-averse (and consumers obsessed with familiarity).

Pop culture in 2022 has been a warm bath of nostalgia. The song of the summer is quite possibly Kate Bushs Running Up That Hill, which was originally released 37 years ago. Its success was launched by the show of the summer, the 80s pastiche Stranger Things. The years biggest blockbuster, Top Gun: Maverick, is a sequel-homage to the 1986 original.

Okay, well, thats just one summer, you might be inclined to say. But its not. So many recent albums have fallen short of expectations that The Wall Street Journal has called it a new music curse. Every year in the last decade, at least half of the top-10 films in America have been sequels, adaptations, and reboots. (Even the exceptions are their own sort of franchise: The two biggest opening-weekend box offices for original films since 2019 were for movies directed by Jordan Peele.)

Is this about median longevity, or workism, or the burden of knowledge in physics and genomics? Uh, no. These are cultural stories, and they deserve a cultural explanation. The best Ive got is this: As the entertainment industry has become more statistically intelligent, entertainment products have gotten more familiar and repetitive.

In music, Ive previously called this the Shazam effect. As the music industry got better at anticipating audience tastes, it realized that a huge portion of the population likes to hear the same thing over and over again. Thats one reason why hit radio stations have become more repetitive and why the most popular music spends more time on the Billboard charts.

For the past few decades, the same statistical revolution that reshaped sportsa.k.a. moneyballhas come for entertainment. You could call it data dulling: In entertainment, greater algorithmic intelligence tends to ruin investment in originality. When cultural domains become more statistically sophisticated, old and proven intellectual property takes money and attention from new and unproven acts.

What does data dulling look like in art? It looks like music companies spending hundreds of millions of dollars buying the catalogs of old hitmakers when, in previous generations, that money would have gone toward developing new artists. It looks like movie studios spending significantly more on the production budgets of sequels than on originals. It looks like risk-averse producers investing more in familiar content, which amplifies consumers natural preference for familiaritythus creating a feedback loop that clusters new cultural products around preexisting hits. It looks a lot like what weve got.

***

Americas multidisciplinary gerontocracy is complex. It comes from a mix of obviously good things (were living longer, healthier lives), dubiously good things (an obsession with the music and tastes of the 1980s), and straightforwardly bad things (a stunning dearth of young political power and an apparent funding bias against young scientists).

Solving this problem is similarly complex. I would be very uncomfortable with laws that ban ambitious 74-year-olds from working. Im not very interested in forcing Bruce Springsteen fans to stop listening to him. But Im enthusiastic about new research organizations that specialize in funding young scientists.

Another matter worth investigating is that other countries dont share the gerontocracy problem across disciplines. In the U.K., for example, the public is getting older, but its leaders arent. I think we should be more open to asking hard questions, such as If the Democratic Party is the preference of Americas young people, why are so few young people represented in its leadership? and How do we balance a respect for the elderly with a scientific approach to evaluating the cognitive state of our oldest political and corporate leaders? In the end, this is about nothing less than how an aging country learns to grow up wisely.

Want to discuss more? Join me for Office Hours August 16 at 1 p.m. ET. This month, Ill discuss whether weve missed our chance to tackle climate change with my colleague Robinson Meyer. Ill continue to hold office hours on the second Tuesday of each month. Register here and reply to this email with your questions about progress or the abundance agenda. If you cant attend you can watch a recording any time on The Atlantics YouTube channel.

Original post:
How Pop Culture, Politics, Science, and Business Got So Old - The Atlantic

One of the consequences of writing a syndicated column on politics and public policy for more than a quarter of a century is that I am constantly told what I think and why I think it.

You may find this consequence perplexing. Isnt my job here to tell readers what I think and why I think it? Sure. But most readers arent passive recipients of information. They listen critically and answer back, even if only in their heads. Some go further. They write me, call me or send letters or comments to the newspapers that run my column.

A common theme in such correspondence, especially over the last several years, is that I dont mean what I say. Some accuse me of parroting someone elses beliefs instead of my own. Others ascribe opinions or goals to me that I dont have or would even find abhorrent.

I appreciate the entertainment value of armchair psychiatry, conspiracy theories, and political sophistry as much as the next person. But just in case there is any doubt, let me restate some basic facts about my beliefs, my work, and this column.

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First, I write whatever I like, about whatever I like. Naturally, the editors who run my column correct spelling and grammatical errors. They edit for length. And they ask for clarifications when I explain myself poorly or cite a statistic they find confusing or improbable. But thats it. No one is in a position to approve or disapprove of my work.

Second, I believe what I say I believe. Although my views have shifted over the decades on a few issues, in response to changing circumstances or different facts presented to me, my core beliefs are the same ones I espoused in my high school newspaper, the student magazine I founded in college, and the syndicated column I began writing for North Carolina newspapers in the summer of 1986.

I believe in personal freedom and in the personal responsibility that inevitably comes with it. I think human beings tend to be wealthier, healthier, and happier to the extent they are freer. I also think human beings have an inherent right to be free, simply because they are human beings. That is, I believe in and employ both consequentialist arguments (freedom is good for you) and natural-rights arguments (freedom is your birthright).

To say that freedom is my highest political value is not to say that I dismiss others. Nor does it mean that I oppose all government actions that inhibit freedom. Indeed, I recognize that government actions are inherently coercive. Im not an anarchist. In fact, I dont think anarchy is a coherent idea. Human beings crave freedom but are also, by nature, often tempted to be disagreeable, shortsighted, and violent. Thats just basic psychology and another inescapable fact of history.

So I believe government should (and always will) exist to protect individual rights and to finance certain core services that, because of collective-action problems, will not be adequately provided through purely voluntary means. At the state and local level, those services include public safety and health, education, and some infrastructure.

These views were traditionally described as liberalism in the tradition of John Locke, Adam Smith, and their intellectual progeny until the early 20th century. Thats when left-wing progressives successfully redefined the term. So today, my philosophy is considered conservative, libertarian, fusionist, or perhaps conservatarian, which is an unlovely but reasonably accurate term.

I firmly believe that maximizing freedom produces large, persistent social benefits. A steady stream of empirical research informs my belief. In recent years, academic studies have confirmed that economic freedom correlates with faster economic growth, higher living standards, more investment in developing countries, greater longevity, a freer press, greater public trust, and higher average levels of happiness.

I and others who espouse the virtues of smaller government and greater freedom may be mistaken. But our beliefs derive from logic and experience. Please structure your rebuttals accordingly, and thanks for reading.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His latest books, Mountain Folk and Forest Folk, combine epic fantasy with early American history (FolkloreCycle.com). Follow Hood on Twitter @JohnHoodNC

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John Hood: How to read this column | Columnists | journalnow.com - Winston-Salem Journal